Attaway To Host Last Solo Art Show In Venice
Photo by Attaway Fine Art
"Venice is everywhere. Venice is in your heart. It’s not gone. Venice is here. Just come visit it. It’s inside your soul." —William Attaway
After 35 years painting and sculpting in the same studio on 3rd and Sunset Ave., Venice luminary William Attaway received an eviction notice, forcing him out of the creative space he never thought he'd leave. On Sunday, he'll host his final art show from 4 to 7 p.m.
He shares about his experience in the video below by EpicTV titled "Has Venice Beach Lost Its Soul?" But even in the wake of booming development straining Venice real estate, Attaway responds with an enlightened message of acceptance and positive transition. After receiving the news, he says, he created a torrent of new work, which he calls "Letting In The Light."
“When the letter finally hit me, I started working," Attaway said in an interview with the Argonaut. "It snapped me out of every funk and thought pattern that wasn’t dealing with what I had to do. I’ve created more work than I ever had [over any six-month span]. What came out of me was light.”
From there, he says, new opportunities began to emerge, including an introduction to Leslie Heinze, an art promoter and curator at ETC [Everything Changes] Gallery, based in Santa Monica. As tech, architecture and other sectors prosper from the neighborhood's transformation, ETC helps local artists play a part and benefit too. For Attaway, this meant producing more handmade serveware for a local coffee shop, art installations at nearby businesses and prospects of creating an art wall at the former Venice Post Office on Windward Circle.
“Every person who’s ever moved here from somewhere else has gentrified this place in some way,” Attaway continued. “I can blame myself. The minute I re-did the Venice boardwalk with my 25-foot sculpture and the mosaics, that was the beginning of the end of what we know was, but the beauty of that is everything changes. That’s where my ideas and Leslie’s linked up.”
Read Attaway's full interview with the Argonaut here.
Attaway "Letting In The Light" // 334 Sunset Ave., Venice 90291 // Sunday, August 16, 4 - 7 p.m.; Free.
