Welcome to Email News: Silver Lake’s early-aughts art scene is all grown up

August 21, 2026 | View in browser

By Jessica Gelt

Arts Editor

I’d like to pen an ode to the once-L.A.-based artist Mel Kadel on the occasion of the release of her first coloring book for women and girls, published by Secret Headquarters in Atwater Village. Titled “Dream Drops,” the detailed hand drawings allow blossoming artists to participate in Kadel’s elaborate, imaginative world of fragile, brave, timid, hopeful, brash, adventurous women — characters she’s drawn for decades now.

I first met Kadel more than 25 years ago when I moved to L.A. from Boston with my then-up-and-coming indie rock band called the Movies. The band moved into a two-bedroom triplex in Silver Lake that cost $845 per month and immediately fell in with a ragtag group of iconoclastic and wildly talented artists including Kadel, photographer Alex Prager, painter America Martin, artist Mercedes Helnwein and bands and musicians such as the Silversun Pickups, Jimmy Tamborello, the Jealous Sound, Earlimart, Radar Bros. and Irving.

Kadel and her then-partner Travis Millard — another prolific and accomplished artist — lived in a cabin near the wild mountainy edges of Echo Park, and friends would gather there to draw, drink and make music. Kadel always had her head bent over her work, page after page of detailed line drawings that later appeared on friends’ bedroom and living room walls and sometimes on fliers for shows at Spaceland or the Silverlake Lounge.

It was Kadel who encouraged many of us to try our hand at creating art, and she once staged a group show at an Echo Park record shop called Sea Level that was owned by a friend of ours. I painted a self-portrait on a piece of wood for the show that still hangs on my wall today.

Kadel created the album cover for the Silversun Pickups’ debut EP, “Pikul,” which was released on Dangerbird Records in 2005, and later, after the band and the label soared to new heights, she covered Dangerbird headquarters near Sunset Junction in Silver Lake with a building-sized mural featuring her otherworldly woman clad in blue stripes with forever flowing flowered hair.

In many ways it is Kadel whom I credit with opening a young me up to the magical world of art and the ideas that flow from it — Kadel and those early L.A. friends, many of whom I no longer see regularly, but whose accomplishments I relish in when they come to my attention. Which is just what I did when I saw that Kadel had released her coloring book — a project that she has worked on (no doubt in the same intentional, intense way that she always has) for the past year.

I’m arts editor Jessica Gelt, glad for what was and looking forward to what will be. This is your arts and culture news for the week.

The week ahead: A curated calendar

FRIDAY

Being Piaf
Written and performed by Eleanora Owen, this solo theatrical piece explores the life and songs of French singer and lyricist Edith Piaf. Directed by Tim Byron Owen.
8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays; 4 p.m. Sundays; through Aug. 30. Odyssey Theatre, 2055 S. Sepulveda Blvd. odysseytheatre.com

Green Corridors
The West Coast premiere of Natalka Vorozhbyt’s darkly humorous drama about the plight of four Ukrainian women — refugees from the full-scale Russian invasion in 2022. Translated by John Freedman with Natalia Bratus. Directed by Frédérique Michel and produced by Charles A. Duncombe.
8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays; 4 p.m. Sundays; through Sept. 27. City Garage Theater, Bergamot Station Arts Center, 2525 Michigan Ave T1, Santa Monica. citygarage.org

Tercera Raíz
The contributions of the African diaspora to Mexican culture are celebrated with dance and mariachi music. Produced in partnership with Grandeza Mexicana Folk Ballet Company.
8 p.m. The Ford, 2580 Cahuenga Blvd. East. theford.com

SATURDAY

New-Music Game Night!
Brightwork Ensemble and People Inside Electronics present an evening of game-inspired works by Cristina Lord, Isaac Schankler, Siobhán Dougall and Richard An, and audience participation.
8 p.m. Sierra Madre Playhouse, 87 W. Sierra Madre Blvd. sierramadreplayhouse.org

SUNDAY

Eileen Cowin: Between Panic and Paradise
The Los Angeles–based photographer and artist’s 50-year career has produced visual narratives that incorporate cinema, literature, poetry and painting, erasing the boundaries between fiction and nonfiction.
Through Jan 3, 2027. Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 5905 Wilshire Blvd. lacma.org

Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom
A Noise Within opens its season with the seventh of the 10 plays in August Wilson’s Century Cycle to be produced by the company. Amber Liekhus stars as an iconic blues singer during a tempestuous recording session in 1927 Chicago. Directed by Gregg T. Daniel.
Previews, 2 p.m. Sunday; 7:30 p.m. Wednesday-Aug. 28; Aug. 29-Sept. 20. A Noise Within, 3352 E. Foothill Blvd., Pasadena. https://www.anoisewithin.org/play/ma-raineys-black-bottom/

TUESDAY

Beethoven’s Fifth with Anna Handler

Da-da-da-DUM. The Los Angeles Philharmonic’s incoming conductor-in-residence leads the orchestra in one of classical music’s most iconic pieces, along with the composer’s rarely heard Triple Concerto and the U.S. premiere of Grace-Evangeline Mason’s “Ablaze the Moon.”
8 p.m. Hollywood Bowl, 2301 N Highland Ave. hollywoodbowl.com

Jeff Goldblum & the Mildred Snitzer Orchestra
As they’ve been doing for three decades, the actor-musician and his band perform contemporary arrangements of classic jazz and American Songbook standards.
7 and 9:30 p.m. Tuesday and Wednesday. Blue Note Los Angeles, 6372 Sunset Blvd. bluenotejazz.com

Looking West: How the Myth of the Western Frontier Got Its Start
Muse/ique takes a deep dive into the legends and reality of the American West through classic Hollywood film scores, folk songs and contemporary compositions that reclaim the era’s diversity. Led by artistic and music director Rachael Worby with Damon Daunno, Raye Zaragoza, Glynn Turman and Muse/ique Orchestra.
7:30 p.m. Tuesday and Wednesday. The Huntington, 1151 Oxford Road, San Marino; 3 pm. (premium RSVPs only) and 7:30 p.m. Aug. 30. Skirball Cultural Center, 2701 N. Sepulveda Blvd. muse-ique.com

WEDNESDAY

California African American Museum
The museum augments two of its ongoing shows with special events. On Wednesday, Justen LeRoy of Art + Practice offers a curatorial walkthrough of “The Sound of Gordon Parks,” an immersive exhibition highlighting the sonic dimension of the photographer, composer, author, poet and filmmaker’s work. Thursday night, poets Pam Ward, Luis Rodriguez and Lynne Thompson share original work inspired by “A New Song: Langston Hughes in the West.”
Gordon Parks, 2 p.m. Wednesday; Langston Hughes, 7 p.m. Thursday. CAAM, 600 State Drive, Exposition Park. caamuseum.org

Conscience
The Los Angeles premiere of Tony Award-winning playwright Joe DiPietro’s drama about pioneering politician Margaret Chase Smith, who famously challenged Joseph McCarthy’s tactics and was the first woman to serve in both houses of the U.S. Congress. Directed by Caryn Desai.
Previews, 7:30 p.m. Wednesday and Thursday; 7:30 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays; 2 p.m. Sundays; through Sept. 13. International City Theatre the Beverly O’Neill Theater, 330 E. Seaside Way, Long Beach. ictlongbeach.org

THURSDAY

Rachmaninoff & Adams
Gemma New conducts John Adams’ “Short Ride in a Fast Machine,” ahead of Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Second Piano Concerto (with Jeneba Kanneh-Mason in her L.A. Phil debut) and Symphonic Dances.
8 p.m. Hollywood Bowl, 2301 N Highland Ave. hollywoodbowl.com

— Kevin Crust

Retrospective

L.A. Times arts coverage from the past …

A double life as actor, playwright

Aug. 14, 2011

“I’m in a play called ‘This.’ ”

“OK, what is it called?”

“No, no, it’s called ‘This.’ ”

“Yes? What? It’s called what?”

With a lighthearted laugh, Eisa Davis says she often encounters this response when revealing that she is in a new production of “This,” which recently opened at the Kirk Douglas Theatre. The perplexity may be fitting for the universe playwright Melissa James Gibson has created: a world of confusion in which close friends enter a vulnerable time of unforeseen circumstances testing their expectations — a time also known as middle age.

Davis’ work as an actor and a playwright has contributed to a textured career. She was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in drama in 2007 for her play “Bulrusher,” about a biracial orphan infant found in a basket and raised by a quiet schoolteacher. She went on to write and star in the autobiographical “Angela’s Mixtape,” which was among the New Yorker’s best plays of 2009. Other plays she has written include “Ramp,” as well as “The History of Light,” which is returning to the stage this fall in New Jersey. READ MORE

– Jasmine Elist

Culture news and the SoCal scene

A 250-year-old portrait by painter Joshua Reynolds recently arrived at the Getty and is being examined by conservators before going on view in its West Coast debut later next month. “The Portrait of Mai” was acquired by the Getty for $61 million in a rare joint purchase with the National Portrait Gallery in London and depicts a young, regal-looking Tahitian man who arrived in London with Capt. James Cook in 1774.

If you’ve seen the recent national tour of Disney’s “Beauty and the Beast” at the Hollywood Pantages Theatre, you may have wondered how on earth the actor playing the living chandelier Lumiere sings and dances for more than two hours while wearing lighted candles on both of his hands. The answer has arrived via this fun story written by Times contributor Jenelle Riley, who headed backstage during a recent performance to trail Danny Gardner as he donned the 7-pound props and went about the business of performing in the rigorous show.

The group show “To Share a Stomach” recently opened at the Brick in East Hollywood. Times contributor Sharon Mizota wrote a review that included her take on the unique and difficult-to-execute concept. The show was made manifest when 25 Iranian artists, working under challenging wartime conditions, sent instructions to artists counterparts in L.A. for how to create artworks using various levels of collaboration. Mizota found the results understandably uneven, but deeply touching and impactful.

The newly homeless National Symphony Orchestra, whose fate has become uncertain as a court battle wages over whether or not the Kennedy Center will close down for two years, performed at the Hollywood Bowl earlier this week. Times classical music critic Mark Swed was there to watch, along with many effusive supporters of music director Gianandrea Noseda’s now wandering orchestra. Swed found the program lacking in imagination, but noted, “with its smooth strings, creamy brass, pungent winds and friendly percussion, Noseda’s NSO came across as a gracious orchestra meant to please, and, consequently, a seemingly marvelous anomaly in an otherwise divisive present-day D.C.”

Speaking of the Kennedy Center, last week proved a pivotal one for its fate. The Kennedy Center Board of Trustees voted late in the week to move forward with President Trump’s plan to close the building for renovations for two years. According to multiple news reports, the board also voted to inscribe Trump’s name on the building using the language “Restored and Renovated by President Donald J. Trump.”

The Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego announced earlier this week that it has appointed Brett Littman as its new director and chief executive. Littman is replacing Kathryn Kanjo, who left to become the new director of the UC Irvine Langson Orange County Museum of Art. Littman has previously served in a variety of leadership roles in the arts in New York City, including as director of the Isamu Noguchi Foundation and Garden Museum; executive director of the Drawing Center; and deputy director of MoMA PS1. He was also co-director of Dieu Donné Papermill and associate director of UrbanGlass. He will start at MCASD in early October as the fifth director and chief executive in the museum’s history.

The Perenchio Foundation has awarded a $2,040,000 grant to the Los Angeles Children’s Chorus, representing the largest grant in the Grammy-winning organization’s history. The 2026 General Operating Support grant, which aids many aspects of the organization’s programming and community offerings, will be distributed over three years, and arrives at LACC celebrates its 40th anniversary.

— Jessica Gelt

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