>> The second Westside Permaculture Gathering will be an "Intro to Permaculture" primer, put together by community permaculturists, as well as a local potluck. All are invited to the free event: Monday, June 23, 6:30 p.m. - 8:30 p.m. in the Multipurpose Room of the Santa Monica Main Library, 601 Santa Monica Blvd., Santa Monica. Contact Sean Jennings at swjennings@gmail.com with questions.
>> At the "ReGreen: Green Home Improvement" event, everyone from homeowners to design professionals can find out about the ReGreen program -- "best practice guidelines and targeted educational resources for sustainable residential improvement projects" developed by the American Society of Interior Designers' Foundation and the U.S. Green Building Council. The free event happens Tuesday, June 24., from 6 p.m. - 8:30 p.m. at the Multi-Purpose Room of the Santa Monica Public Library, 601 Santa Monica Blvd., Santa Monica. RSVP to gbrc@globalgreen.org are appreciated but not required.
>> Hear the authors of the Homegrown Evolution blog, Kelly Coyne and Erik Knutzen (interviewed here), at an L.A. Eco-Village event titled "The Urban Homestead: A Talk, Slide Show and Book-Signing." The event happens Thursday, June 26, at 7:30 p.m., at the L.A. Eco-Village, 117 Bimini Place, Los Angeles. Suggested donation's $5; RSVP to crsp@igc.org.
>> Join artist Jane Tsong and curator Donna Conwell for a conversation at the Farmlab Public Salon, " 'Everything is Alive' and Other Street Projects." "Everything is Still Alive" is an art project in which native California poppies were planted on patches of exposed earth in the L.A. area: "where the poppies survive, orange blossoms reveal the disparate patterns of land management." The free event takes place Friday, June 27 at noon at Farmlab, 1745 N. Spring Street #4, Los Angeles.
For more eco-themed events happening in the L.A. area, check out the Emerald City green calendar.
Photos courtesy Jane Tsong via Farmlab
"In a city where everyone defines themselves by what they drive, who are you if you take the train or the bus?" asks Andrae Gonzalo, a fashion designer who, with choreographer Jamie Benson, forms the duo performing "Go Metro" this weekend.
A Metro-inspired dance comedy that incorporates vaudeville shtick, contemporary dance, and everything in between, "Go Metro's" described as a "surreal but comedic look at the metropolitan experience, exploring characters and scenarios inspired by real individuals [Benson and Gonzalo] have encountered on the elaborate caste structure that is L.A.'s public transportation system."
When: Friday, May 23 and Saturday, May 24, 8:30 p.m. both days
Where: Highways Performance Space, 1651 18th St., Santa Monica
Cost: $20 regular, $15 for members, students, and seniors. Buy tickets online
Get there by bus (or bike or foot), because the Westside's still got no rail.
 A friend asked me if I was going to the National Train Day festivities at Union Station on Saturday, and I rather grumpily said no. What's the point, when I never get to take rail? One day, when the Subway to the Sea finally gets built out to Santa Monica, THEN I'll celebrate trains.
For Santa Monica residents and others feeling similarly left out by our rail-less-ness on the Westside, there's an eco-ish festival for us on Saturday too! Take the bus or bike over to the "Revel with a Cause" Santa Monica Festival to see and hear world music and dance on solar powered stages, participate in art workshops using pre-loved materials, shop from eco-friendly vendors, and sample international cuisine served with biodegradable foodware.
When: Saturday, May 10, 11 a.m. - 6 p.m.
Where: Clover Park, 2600 Ocean Park Blvd., Santa Monica
Cost: Free!
The recycled art workshops sound like they'll be the most fun:
- re:Fashion Workshop: Turn newspapers into wearable fashions, then model it on the re:Fashion Catwalk.
- Scratch Art & Spin Art: Learn to DJ with Scratch Academy -- then turn vintage vinyl into art.
- The Nutty Recycler's Amazing Trash Puppetry Factory: Turn trash into puppets!
- People, Cats, Dogs and Whatever Else: Turn old materials from past Santa Monica Museum of Art programs into a collage about you and your pet.
If you don't want to commit to an entire workshop, you can browse the Eco Zone -- booths with eco orgs and vendors eager to help you reduce your carbon footprint. You can also bring old cellphones and other small electronics to drop off for reuse and recycling.
Throughout the day, there'll be performances from a diverse group of musical acts, from L.A.-based 1960s Cambodian pop band Dengue Fever to Romanian folk music group Fishtank Ensemble.
Cyclists will be able to valet park their bikes; bus riders can hop on the Big Blue Bus #8 to be dropped off right at Clover Park. But if you really enjoy fighting traffic and scrambling for a parking spot, take advantage of the free (but never hassle-free) parking.
I hear the economy's not doing so well, but this downer doesn't seem to have hit the green market very hard, considering all the big green businesses and initiatives making the news. Yes, there's money to be made in environmentalism -- and here's a roundup to some of the contests that can put some of that green in your pocket:
 One Good Chair design competition. Make beauty meet comfort, and get $4,500 to transform that brill idea into a prototype. Downside: You gotta plunk down $50 in faith of your design by May 16. Final designs must be submitted by June 9. (via Inhabitat)
- Go Organic! for Earth Day contest. Just send in photos and an explanation that illustrate why you badly need a grocery makeover. The grand prize winning family will get to go on a grocery store trip to fill up the kitchen with free organic groceries, and a day of cooking lessons with Chef Catelli in their kitchen.
Best of luck with your entries.
Make art, create forest. Make your own large mixed-media tree sculpture at the Arbor Ardor event, happening at the Santa Monica Museum of Art tomorrow. Your tree sculpture will be part of a larger collaborative piece that will serve as an "artistic illustration of what can happen when you put trees in an area," according to Asuka Hisa, SMMoA Director of Education.
When: Sat., April 5, 1 pm - 4 pm
Where: Bergamot Station G1, 2525 Michigan Ave., Santa Monica
Cost: $15 non-members; $10 SMMoA members
All ages welcome! Assistants will be on hand to help realize your tree project. The afternoon will also be peppered with presentations from three green groups:
- Tree Planting Essentials, by TreePeople, 1 pm
- How to Make a Junker Garden, by Farmlab, 2 pm (top photo: Farmlab's Junker Car)
- Sustainability Ideas and Strategies, by the City of Santa Monica Environmental Programs Division, 3 pm
RSVP's requested but not required: Call Hisa at (310) 586-6488 x118, or email asuka.hisa@smmoa.org. Arbor Ardor's part of SMMoA's Cause for Creativity, an ongoing series of workshops that combine art making with social activism.
 Aspiring filmmakers and photographers with an enviro-conscience: Got an idea to make the world a greener place? Put it on camera and you could win $10,000 from Sundance.
In conjunction with the second season of its series, “Big Ideas for a Small Planet,” Sundance Channel is holding a national contest, "What’s The Big Idea?" inviting you to submit a short film or photo essay demonstrating your idea for greening the world. The winner gets $10,000, plus a private green home audit. Four runners-up get a Sundance Channel Green VIP Bag -- with unspecified contents ostensibly worth $500 each.
Get your idea in before May 20. If you're one of the 25 top entries, your idea will go up on Sundance's site a week later for public viewing and voting until June 24. The winner will be announced the week of July 7. Good luck!
April is the cruelest month -- and perhaps relatedly, also National Poetry Month. While few people pick up a volume of poetry for pleasure reading these days, public transit riders will find their morning commute take a poetic turn, thanks to Poetry in Motion. This program, put together by the Poetry Society of America and various transit agencies across the U.S., puts poem-placards in the ad spaces in trains and buses.
If you'd rather be read to than read yourself, come down to Union Station in downtown L.A. on April 10. Beginning at 4 pm, L.A. poets Elena Karina Byrne, Suzanne Lummis and Marisela Norte will read their poetry to the rush-hour crowd.
According to Metro, "The alternative space in the context of a transit system has become a welcome platform for the spoken and written word, delivered to delighted audiences by published poets in great performances." Listeners will receive commemorative Metro bookmarks inscribed with poetry by Emily Dickinson and Octavio Paz.
Live on the westside and don't want to be seen east of the 405? Then attend the live poetry reading with poets Molly Bendall, Eloise Klein Healy, and -- my own dissertation adviser -- David St. John in Santa Monica. The event will begin at 7 pm in the Martin Luther King, Jr. Auditorium of the Santa Monica Library, Main Branch, 601 Santa Monica Blvd.
Both events are free and open to the public. Take Metro or the Big Blue Bus there, and get in the poetic mood by reading the poem-placards pre-event.
I love the handcrafted, one-of-a-kind goods made with recycled materials on Etsy, but to find the good stuff, you usually have to slog through all the crunchy-looking duds. But at Reform School, a cute little eco-store in Silver Lake, the owners have doe the hand-selection for you, collecting together all the artsy, whimsical, pretty eco gems that don't look like the product of a sad home ec project.
Plush pillows are made of everything from organic cotton to reused car seat belts. Journals, calendars, and cards are made with recycled paper -- and look pretty too. Shoes made of recycled materials are all the rage -- including cute teensy shoes for tots.
Find all sorts of green books, from Slow Food Nation to Myspace / Our Planet. Reform School also seems to have a soft spot for recent TED prize winner Dave Eggers' press McSweeney's; you can pick up the latest edition of The Believer or artsy tomes by David Byrne.
You'll find lots of DIY books too, to instruct you on guerilla gardening, guerilla art, and pretty much any type of eco-related guerilla activity.
Reform School's also a one-stop-shop for chic home decorations. Eco-friendly candlesticks, paintings, drawings, and mobiles are all ready for you to take home and get compliments about at your next house party.
I got myself a mousepad, made by Remarkable from a recycled car tire! My mouse feels v. eco atop it now.
Reform School. 4014 Santa Monica Blvd. Los Angeles. (323) 906-8660.
I finally made it over to the Dali exhibit at the LA County Museum of Art on Christmas Eve. And while I realize the surrealist artist's works are not particularly green, I did find some cute eco recycled stuff at the LACMA gift shop.
 After all, to really be a recycler, it's important to close the loop by purchasing recycled products. And if you're in the market for a new bag or purse, LACMA turns out to be a great place to check out recycled ones first-hand.
 There are bags made from recycled billboards by Vy & Elle (top photo), purses made incorporating recycled soda can tabs (left), and purses and bags made from recycled truck inner tubes by Neutra (right).
 You can even go recycled AND get solar power by opting for the Voltaic backpack, with fabric made from recycled PET (like plastic bottles) and solar panels to charge up your celly, iPod, or camera.
Lots more recycled bag and purse options exist online, but if you're like me, you like to see and touch stuff before buying them. Plus, it'd be a pity to miss the Dali exhibit! Get there to gaze at the soft watches and disembodied eyeballs before the exhibit closes on Jan. 6.
Neutra bag photo courtesy of Neutra; all other photos by Siel
Most plastic bags rot in landfills, but a few lucky ones met LA-based multi-media artist Dianna Cohen, got chopped up, then framed into works of art.
So I went to see these on display at the opening reception for Dianna's solo show -- titled "Cycle" -- at the epOxybOx last Friday.
 I milled about nibbling on a juicy local nectarine -- all the reception food came courtesy of the Venice Farmers' Market -- and sipping wine while contemplating the aesthetics of plastic --
The art? A couple pieces imaginatively used the print on re-loved plastic bags, creating both a visual and textual collage -- but most of the exhibit left me wondering if the pieces would be interesting without the eco, re-use element that captivates environmentalists....
In fact I instead found myself mesmerized by the gorgeous, amorphous floaty lamps in the epOxybOx Gallery. I guess I like things that glow softly, kind of like a computer screen?
Luckily for me, the exhibit also showcased a few of Dianne's non-plastic works -- including a few lamps, crafted from reclaimed materials into a sort of mechanical beauty --
De-car-ing: Walked a couple blocks, got on a surprisingly crowded but on-time Big Blue Bus 2, got off in Venice at Abbot Kinney / California and walked 5 or so blocks to the show. Reverse on the way back, with a slightly less crowded bus.
Photos by Siel
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