DISCLAIMER: I wrote this last year for a literary journalism class, hence the length of the piece. My intent wasn't to judge or offend the people in my beloved hometown, but to point out and exaggerate the stereotypes that are commonly attributed to Laguna.
Welcome to Orange County, California! Home of The O.C., MTV’s Laguna Beach: The Real O.C. and Bravo’s The Real Housewives of Orange County. Come one, come all! Witness the circusy luxury of Orange County’s decadence by the sea. Shiny Mercedes-Benz and BMW cars zoom and swerve down the famous Highway 1. The homes of the Crystal Cove housing community loom large over the ocean. They are brand-new and expensive. The community, built in 2009, holds sites alone cost at least $2.8 million. Each looks almost precisely like the other faux European or Tuscan-style house next to it. Homeowners have their picks of four architectural types: Southern France, Northern Italy, Tuscany, or Santa Barbara. Women, driving their Range Rovers and Porsche Cayenne Turbos, shuttle their children to and from school. None seems to own a true pair of sweatpants or to have a hair out of place. Their purses alone are worth more than an entire month’s rent for a 2-bedroom apartment anywhere else in the country. Husbands are hardly visible because successful businessmen are always too busy, but their signatures appear on every credit card bill their wife and children rack up. Nothing is too costly or too excessive for their tastes. Words like “no”, “spoiled”, and “declined” are not in their vocabularies. These are the people of Orange County after all. This is how they all are, right?
Descending down a hill next to El Morro Elementary School along the cliffs and bluffs framing the edge of the Pacific, a small green sign peeks out from the bushes formally announcing, “Laguna Beach City Limit, Pop. 24,100, Elev. 24”. The next sign is a bit more whimsical. It’s larger and made out of dark brown wood, so it stands out among the shrubs lining the highway. In white and gold letters, it reads: “LAGUNA BEACH, Home of the Festival of the Arts and the Pageant of the Masters.” This is the sign to see. This is what the town is known for, what it’s proud of.
Laguna Beach is a small town, only seven miles long, deeply rooted in creativity and eccentricity. The homes here are not always large, though they’ve grown in recent years, but most are not brand-new. Funky little bungalows dot the hills above Laguna’s tiny downtown area, each with an ocean view. These homes do not represent a declaration of financial affluence, but a history of occupants. No one house matches another; each has its own character and style, ranging from the most modern of homes to the most ramshackle of beach cottages. These homes are each weathered with passing time and experience. In the heart of Laguna, the driveways are emptied of luxury cars. Though real estate prices have jumped in recent years, this section of town is home to residents that aren’t necessarily excessively wealthy, some citizens were lucky enough to have lived here their whole lives. These people were either born here or moved to Laguna long before the recent real estate boom. This Laguna Beach is what its locals are proud of.
Continuing through town along the Pacific Coast Highway, past Main Beach, the Hotel Laguna, and various other stores and cafes on the left, you’ll eventually arrive and stop at Oak Street. At the corner of PCH and Oak Street, thirty feet from the entrance to the beach, sits an inconspicuous little shop with a simple white and black sign reading “Trashpretty.” There are a few young kids cruising in and out of its doors, and as the sun sets behind Catalina Island out in the Pacific Ocean, more begin to arrive.
Tonight is November’s First Thursday Art Walk in Laguna Beach. It’s a monthly event celebrating art and art culture, during which stores and galleries open up, hold special events, and serve food and booze to patrons. People, usually adults, walk up and down Pacific Coast Highway and Forest Avenue, touring galleries and events. It’s a night when the sleepy little town comes alive for the sole purpose of art and a good time. Trashpretty is holding its monthly concert and art show, attracting kids too young for the alcoholic festivities at most of the galleries. No other place in town caters to the young artists like they do here. “It’s a singular entity," says Lauren D’Amato, one the shops previously featured young artists. “There aren't any other places that I know of in Orange County that have the same vibe and atmosphere as Trashpretty.”
Walking into Trashpretty, your eyes are inundated with colors and images, taking them a second to really focus on any one thing. Maybe it’s the action figures encased in liquid-filled jars on shelves near the back of the shop or the flawless vintage carpet coat of green and mustard paisley hanging in the window, beckoning customers to enter. Maybe it’s the ornate Victorian chair peeking out from underneath a protective pink furry, spotted blanket. Maybe it’s the collage of magazine images decoupaged onto the floor or an old children’s book sticking out of a stack of vintage books about love and religion. It’s a throwback to the 1960s, just a kaleidoscope of colors and textures reminiscent of Haight-Ashbury, San Francisco.
The store opened sometime around November of 2008, says Piper Abate, the nineteen-year-old shop buyer, who’s worked there since the beginning. The shop was opened by Vienna Raquel, a young, extremely creatively charged Laguna Beach local, who wanted to create an outlet for all of the local music and art that was pulsating out of her friends and the other young people in town. The space was once an antiques store. Vienna had lived in the building at the time, and eventually the space became vacant. She jumped on it and decided to create a thrift-store-venue hybrid where the young kids of town could express themselves. Trashpretty was Vienna’s brainchild. It started as a place to sell her own things. She’d always collected vintage items, gone to thrift stores, gone to Salvation Army, garage sales, and flea markets over the years. Over time, she had a bunch of excess stuff, clothes that she didn’t wear herself, or items that she just bought because she thought they were interesting. This stuff, Vienna’s personal things, became the shop’s first inventory. When Trashpretty opened, the shop was half the size it is now, there were about three racks, a couch, a counter, and maybe five records. Two years later, the store has doubled in size, having absorbed an old salon space next door, and can accommodate shows more comfortably.
The place represents a true scene that is sometimes overlooked or forgotten about. “The stereotype of Orange County and stuff is so superficial," says Abate. “There’s such, like, a small underground, flowing through it all that you wouldn’t really know about unless you’d lived here your whole life.” Vienna had gone to high school with the characters of the infamous reality show, Laguna Beach: The Real O.C., and that shallow image frustrated her. She knew that so many of the kids at the high school level, who’d lived here their whole lives and denounced the superficial Laguna image, needed a place like Trashpretty. She also wanted to emphasize that there was more to Laguna. Vienna has since left the business. “I think she just kind of got frustrated with a lot of the kids that were coming through here, and just trying to, like, mimic each other,” says Abate. “Then also, it was at the time difficult, like, financially for the store.” She backed out of Trashpretty as soon as the shop’s business began to take off. It has since been taken over by a young gentleman with a mustache known simply as Justin. He’d shown his art there and was asked to manage the place.
-
It’s getting darker outside. Piper pushes the racks of military, leather, and fur coats, vintage dresses, shirts, and pants up against every wall surrounding the makeshift stage. She cuts the record player, the shop’s only sound system, as the first band sets up their instruments. The setup style is do-it-yourself. There are no stagehands, P.A. systems, or even a real stage to play on. Bands provide all of their own gear. The free concert allows as many to watch as can fit in the joint, but no employees are able to help the acts with their gear. This month’s Art Walk event stars La Ghost, Improvitron, and Meat Stache. The bands sound similar, yet different, and are headed by kids from Laguna and Los Angeles. All three are garage rock bands. La Ghost is more alternative, and decked out is matching leather jackets and skinny jeans. Improvitron is slightly more electronic, but headed by a kid in makeup and vintage slacks and button-down shirt. Meat Stache is the last band. They’re younger and grungy. Longhaired guitarist and singer wear simple beat-up rocker t-shirts and jeans.
The shows came from wanting to draw in more business. People come in for the shows and come back for the clothes. A normal concert attracts between thirty and fifty kids. There’s also the garage space underneath Trashpretty where they host shows about four times a year. Because the space is bigger, they can fit more bands and more people into the space, 100 on a usual concert night, and can charge a small entry fee. Also in the garage, the sound is concealed better, says Piper, so they can get away with being a bit louder than in the store upstairs. There’s a mandated 10 o’clock curfew in Laguna that’s imposed even on the shows, and when they hold the concerts in the garage, they get permits and make the events a bit more legitimate. That way, not only is their standing with law enforcement better, but also with the parents of the attendees. Trashpretty isn’t strictly limited to Laguna Beach talent; they showcase bands from surrounding areas like Costa Mesa, Dana Point, San Clemente, and Lake Forest. Many of which, like a band called the Growlers, have transitioned through Trashpretty, gained a following, and are now hitting it big.
The music that the shop allows to play in the store stem from one simple principle, “Anyone who just has really, like, a cool creative thing going,” says Piper. “We don’t really try to look for people that are, necessarily going anywhere, like as far as being famous.” They want bands looking to have a good time onstage and with the audience. Again, this idea of originality and of being genuine comes up. “We don’t want, weird, made-up, trying to be, like, super-cool whatever kinds of bands,” says Piper. “We want to have fun and dance around and have a good time.” It’s about thriving from one’s own individuality, not being creative because it’s popular or trendy. Lately, there are an increased number of kids trying to be “hipsters” or “indie,” wearing identical, predictable horn-rimmed glasses, skinny jeans, or floral blouses. Piper claims that though she gets a headache from this “trendy scene” as she calls it, there is a perk to such a consistent group. Piper says, “It’s easy to buy for them because the market is really predictable. That market is so predictable!” They want to stay separate from Urban Outfitters and other places where alternative trends have become commercial.
Piper throws an orange paisley sheet over all of the vinyl records, hoping to hide them from thieving hands. “Stealing stuff pisses me off,” says Piper. “Our stuff is so cheap too.” It used to be quite a problem for Trashpretty, but more recently, Piper and Justin have wised up. Sunglasses displayed on a glass table are removed and placed behind the counter in a drawer. A dusty, faded, trampled Oriental-style rug covers the space left where the racks were. It’s situated directly in front of the microphone stand and will serve as a dance floor. The kids begin to arrive. There are tortilla chips, salsa, and Arizona Iced Tea served for patrons on a low table inside. Piper places a bucket labeled “Grits” outside the door. This will serve as a giant ashtray.
Trashpretty is a new staple in Laguna Beach, but it finds its roots in the artist migration of the early 1900s and counterculture vibe of the 1960s. The name "Laguna" comes from the area's earliest settlers, the Native Americans. The first spelling was "Lagonas," meaning “lake”. Since the early 1800s, the town has been a bit of a tourist destination, starting with the construction of the town's historic beachfront Hotel Laguna built in 1888, after the first structure burnt down. In 1903, San Francisco painter Norman St. Claire vacationed in Laguna. He returned home with a number of landscape paintings he'd completed while there, and shining reviews of the beautiful little gem of a beach town he'd visited. Soon after, he moved to Laguna and most of his artist friends followed suit. Word spread throughout the artist communities and before long, Plein Air artists like William Wendt and marine artist Frank Cuprien moved south as well. A few years later, Laguna had a population of about 300 permanent residents, half of whom were artists. In 1918, artist Edgar Payne opened an art gallery that is now the Laguna Art Museum, one of the first museums in California. In the 1920s, Hollywood stars like Bette Davis, Mary Pickford, and Judy Garland held residence her.
In the 1960s and early 1970s, the town became the Southern California epicenter of the alternative culture or counterculture. In 1967, John Griggs and the other founding members of the infamous Brotherhood of Eternal Love relocated to Laguna. The Brotherhood was an informal organization of psychedelic drug enthusiasts and dealers and the group was based out of the Mystic Arts Bookstore in Laguna on PCH. Timothy Leary, the excommunicated Harvard psychology professor, proponent of free love, and creator of the “Turn on, tune in, drop out” philosophy, lived with the Brotherhood for several months before being arrested for marijuana possession by Laguna Beach police officer Neil Purcell on December 26, 1968. Remnants of this time, the Sound Spectrum music store, and the Cherry Moon vintage shop, still exist in town. But, most have faded away with time, victims of the ritzier boutiques and restaurants that followed the increased property values.
-
Tonight, the walls are covered by the art of the event’s featured artist, Andrew Livingston. He’s a screen-printer and his art is small, simplistic, and yet bizarre. The pictures are of people, but people unlike any seen in reality, black and white. Some with large eyes are giant demonic grins, others have exaggerated hair and noses.
The art portion of Trashpretty was something that came from First Thursday Art Walk, but then also made sense for the shop. “Our friends were creative and we wanted to use up space,” says Piper. Now, Trashpretty has become known for showing art that might otherwise not be seen in galleries. One of the previous young artists did a show of deep-fried tabloids. They show art of every kind. They’ve had fine art, as in paintings on canvas, screen-printing like tonight’s artist, graphic design. Piper has showcased her own photography here. The only medium they haven’t shown is ceramics or sculptures. Lauren D’Amato, an art student at Saddleback College, is from Aliso Viejo and contends that, as an artist, she loves living near such a big art community like Laguna Beach. But it can sometimes be quite imposing. “Although Laguna is a very open-minded city it's easy to feel unwelcome as an outsider or young artist,” says Lauren. “Galleries in Laguna tend to turn away the young and upcoming artists and prefer to showcase the more commercial and money making art.” So, Trashpretty fills that niche and accommodates younger artists.
Livingston’s black and white caricatures crookedly smile down from their framed positions onto the kids beginning to kick and groove to the music. There’s a crowd forming now. Young adults, teens, and one or two homeless gentlemen socialize outside the doors. Friends greet each other with hugs and smiles, locals, hipsters, punkers, greasers, and Doug, a leathery local homeless staple. They’re all here. One boy is wearing a Peter Pan costume, complete with feathered hat. Another guy is done up with makeup and high-waisted slacks. Girls and guys dance as the first band, Meat Stache, begins to play. The drowning musical magnet sucks in more kids from outside. The party has started.
No comments:
Post a Comment