Kristine McKenna

Credit: PHOTO BY KEVIN SCANLON

Tom Lutz: Keeper of the Printed Word

Kristine McKenna
Tom Lutz writes books (four works of nonfiction so far) and he reads with a vengeance. Recently appointed chair of the Department of Creative Writing at UC Riverside, Lutz devours books, and reviews of books, and essays about books. His world is largely shaped by the written word, and consequently,......
Credit: PHOTO BY KEVIN SCANLON

Tom Patchett: The Collector/Exhibitor/Vendor

Kristine McKenna
With bookstores dying the death all over town, the opening of a cool new bookstore is cause for celebration. So, all hail Smart Art Press Books & Multiples, Tom Patchett's latest gift to the city. For the last 16 years Patchett operated Track 16 Gallery, a freewheeling institution that ran......
Credit: PHOTO BY KEVIN SCANLON

Claire Peeps: The Lifesaver

Kristine McKenna
Every year, Claire Peeps saves the lives of some 100 Los Angeles artists, six directors of nonprofit arts organizations, even a few city leaders — not literally, of course, but in her capacity as executive director of the Durfee Foundation. In that capacity, she's one of L.A.'s unknown heroes, spreading......
Credit: PHOTO BY KEVIN SCANLON

Emily Green: Waterblogged

Kristine McKenna
Sometime in the not-too-distant future, Emily Green is likely to be testifying before a congressional hearing on the subject of water. Publisher and editor of Chance of Rain, a blog about the hundreds of different ways water intersects with human life, Green is way ahead of the curve in terms......
Man of the Masque: Brendan Mullen; Credit: Gary Leonard

Brendan Mullen, RIP

Kristine McKenna
If you never met Brendan Mullen, who died on Monday after suffering a massive stroke, you really missed something. Brendan was one of L.A.’s great treasures, an...
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R.I.P. Lesley Taplin, Downtown Neighborhood Organizer

Kristine McKenna
Lesley Taplin, who was killed in an automobile accident April 13, was a vital presence in so many different worlds that it’s difficult to know how to begin writing about her life. A world that came to have crucial meaning for her over the past decade, however, was the community......
Watts Towers

Sex … er … Art and the City: Sarah Schrank's L.A. Art

Kristine McKenna
There’s such a dearth of reliable writing about the history of art in Los Angeles that anyone who ventures into this vast, uncharted terrain deserves a medal. Sarah Schrank has certainly earned hers with Art and the City: Civic Imagination and Cultural Authority in Los Angeles, a meticulously researched accounting......