Ed Emberley and Friends

July 17th - August 7th at Scion Installation L.A.

3521 Helms Ave (at National)

Culver City, L.A. 90232

Hours: Wednesday - Saturday, 11am - 6pm

Chances are if you are an artist born in the 60's, 70's or 80's you may have at one time had your hands on an Ed Emberley drawing book.  A believer that everyone can learn to draw, Ed has put that to the test in over 20 children's books that he has illustrated, and dozens more he has contributed to.  I remember the The Little Drawing Book of Animals and I feel like everyone around my age has probably used that book to either make paper airplanes from - or learn how to draw.  The books are legend and Caleb Neelon, curator of the show, definitely used them to learn how to draw.  Both natives of Massachusetts, Caleb and Ed came out to Los Angeles and helped create a colorful, nostalgic, and contemporary look at some of Ed's seminal drawing books and their characters.

Caleb is an American artist, writer and educator who has spent time all over the world painting public mural art and graffiti.  He has also written for Swindle, Juxtapoz (he penned the current cover article on Dr. Lakra for the August edition), and has worked on several books, including Graffiti Brasil.  Caleb approached this exhibit as a way of creating a fun atmosphere for the artists involved, giving them an opportunity to mesh their styles with that of Ed's (who inspired all of the artists in the show on some level).    The awesome perk also being that Caleb is working to donate all the large paintings and the proceeds of any of Ed’s art sales from the show to Children's Hospital.  Yes, it's that cool.

Caleb and Ed

"The idea was that I would take 6 artists who are of our generation, or older or later, and put them together and have all of them draw together.  It had to be a fun art camp experience for everyone involved.  The idea for everybody was everyone would each get a 6 x 6 panel, so it would be something big, and they would make a painting on site, in the gallery, in the week leading to the show.  Those paintings would be a kind of mash-up of their style and Ed Emberley’s style, and I left that kind of ambiguous to people - get some Ed in there and get some you in there and it would meet somewhere in between.  The thing with Ed Emberley’s work, which is brilliant, is that you’re supposed to take your own spin on it, and this would differentiate it from someone else in the influential drawing world, like a Stan Lee.  If you draw a Stan Lee character, its different, it registers immediately, and registers a little bit wrong.  If you draw a Spider Man, it's not quite right, it registers as wrong.  Well, you’re supposed to mutate these Ed Emberley characters and turn them into something, as he often just gives you the face or he’ll give you most of it in one pose, if he doesn’t give you the whole thing.  So, you run with it.  But he gives you the recipe of how to do it in a very simple language of squares and triangles and circles and dots and squiggles, and off you go.  I always felt that he was a very giving drawing book instructor, in that you were supposed to take this stuff and run with it.  He wasn’t giving you just one way, a recipe, he was giving you an alphabet to play with."

wall of Emberley

Matt Leines original

Matt Leines with some Ed Emberley spirit

Artists included in the show are Christopher Kline, Raul Gonzales, Saelee Oh, Matt Leines, Seonna Hong, and Ben Woodward.  They all contributed amazing work, exhibiting their large mash-up piece and a few smaller pieces of their own works to show their style and allow you to connect the dots.  Also featured in the show are several original mock-ups of Ed’s books, essentially the rough, but clean drafts that he shopped around to publishers.  They have never been shown before and are in pristine condition, and really really cool.

Caleb is a talented working artist who resides now in his hometown, the greater Boston area, instead of inserting himself into a thriving art culture like Los Angeles, or New York.  Although, he has cultivated a relationship as an artist within one of the thriving cultures in Massachusetts – the medical field.  He recently did a live, very large, mural painting (52”, in panels) in the busy front lobby of Children’s Hospital of Boston.  One of the panels was eventually placed in the Cardiac ICU for the kids, which was huge for Caleb, because he really believes in the healing messages in art.  Discussing the work of Seonna Hong, Caleb pointed out that there is a lot more to art and the connections it can make in a hospital environment.

“If I’m looking at this (painting) like a little kid in a hospital, I look at this and I say yeah, they are running away from a swamp beasty and they are behind the tree, but it’s silly, you know?  It sends a big kid message - don’t be afraid of things that you don’t need to be afraid of.  I think it’s interesting because a lot of these paintings do deal with being a kid, and what’s scary.  What’s real scary and what’s fake scary.  That’s a real important thing to have working in the hospitals, these little messages….”

Seonna Hong's large piece

“…The funny thing is with art in hospitals is that it’s really considered cutting edge to have any kind art in and any kind of hospital settings and that’s because hospitals are scientific based places and they need proven quantifiable results or any replicable studies for anything they do.  They approach artwork in the same way that they would approach a new treatment for pneumonia.  You have to have some sort of literature that says this is going to be a positive patient outcome.  Now artists look at that and say, duh, of course having art around is going to make people feel better and probably heal faster, but science doesn’t work that way.  So over the past year, I’ve been able to make a relationship with the Children’s Hospital of Boston, which is a very world-leading hospital for kids…Ultimately, you make these hospitals look a little better, you’re doing it for more than just the kids.”

There are two series of 100 limited edition Ed Emberley prints for sale, and several smaller pieces he drew of many of his drawing book characters.  Again, all these proceeds go to Children’s Hospital. 

For more on Ed : http://www.edemberley.com/

For more on Caleb: http://www.theartwheredreamscometrue.com/

Ben Woodward

Raul Gonzales

detail from Chris Kline's large piece

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