Sometimes the best
move is too just leave. Pick yourself up and head for uncharted territory. The
difficulty is in realizing your dilemma, like the frog in hot water not
realizing you’re being boiled alive. This probably happens more often than you
think. Blessed are those with insight into their station. Not everyone is able
to read the cards on the table, fold their hand, and move on with it. Picking
up your life and moving on is no mean feat. It requires a great deal of
sacrifice, loss, and loads of self-esteem. My friend, Kevin Bradley did this.
He left a successful business in Knoxville and set out for the uncharted lands
of the West. If Los Angeles is the city of angels then Santa Monica is the
Valley of the up and coming, the soon to be. Pico Boulevard in particular
contains a bizarre assortment of businesses and activities. All of which is a
feast for the imagination. Kevin has a unique ability to find original and
authentic urban cultural landscapes. He did it in downtown Knoxville (before
there was such a thing) and he’s done it again in Santa Monica. This area has been
thriving for some time, but the presence of the Church
of Type
adds
significantly to its bohemian atmosphere.
I’ve
known Kevin since my glory days in Knoxxxville, land of vice – land of
opportunity. The year was 1998, and I,
Garry W. Shores was living in Fort Sanders, a magnificent college ghetto. I had
a humble apartment at 1537 Laurel Avenue. A large white and yellow wedding cake
styled Victorian home built in late 1800’s. I lived out back in the carriage
house while attending the University. It was filled with rowdies, college
students, bands, and other such ne’er do wells. Living above us all was Mark
Sarhoff, his wife my landlord, and he. Well he was a legend in the making. Mark
owned a row of four or five buildings on Jackson Avenue. The problem was they
were in deplorable condition. He showed me around, telling me I could live in
one, but I couldn’t tell anyone, or have visitors as nothing was up to code,
and people up the hill were hitting golf balls through the windows. I passed on
the offer, but then he got me into the carriage house, and I started doing odd
jobs for “the man”. He had me driving up and down the interstate in the middle
of the night looking for Orange Barrels and Traffic Cones for his construction
projects. I managed his parking lots till 4AM on the weekends. I sold cars, and
did some insurance work for him. It was more like an underworld career than
just a job. Weekends at four in the morning were spent huddled over kaa-bobs
and shwarma’s at the Ali Baba Deli on Kingston Pike. Me, Mark, and my squeeze
Dea, laughing and cutting up at four in the morning at a Middle Eastern deli in
Knoxville, chugging beers in the parking lot. Life was strange.
One morning in around 1998 or there abouts,
I awoke to find a street fair in progress, rising with difficulty, my head
still thick with libations from the previous night’s I rallied, and out I went to
the “Fair”. It was a typical Fort Sanders event. People shuffling around
nursing hang-overs or drinking Bloody Mary’s a few tables set up with hippies
selling hemp jewelry and glass pipes. The odd skate-boarder, a few randoms
standing around smoking cigarettes, all standing around waiting for something
to happen that never will. A few tents lined the street, to hawk their varied
wares. Armed with only a cup of coffee
in hand, I ventured forth into the unknown. It was at this “Fair” I met Kevin
and his Yee-Haw Industrial Letterpress. From that moment, I was on board. I stood
transfixed and transcended, like Paul of Tarsus struck blind on the road to
Galilee I was hit with the great and mighty thunderclap of Industrial Letterpress.
The weather was cloudy, overcast but not too cold or windy. Kevin had just
bought the infamous building on Gay Street. I used to take naps on the couch in
the display window, next to the giant Piggly Wiggly Head. I know, it makes no
sense. Kevin had a couch in the display window an old Victorian Couch with the
stuffing coming out and it smelled like your grandma, but it was I a really
long couch and sleeping on it was pretty nice.
Soon, I began pulling down letterpress
posters wherever I found them. I still have a few from those days. My favorite
all time is the haunted pie social at the 11th Street Espresso
House. I acquired this one from the “Old Food Co-op” on Broadway. At the old
food co-op you could hang out on the front bench and have a cold one with
whoever was on break, like my good friend Sandi Walker. On the back of the 11th
Street Espresso House Poster it says “Save for Lark” then next to it is
written, “Claimed by Garry W. Shores”. Possession is 9/10 the law my friends,
my Dad taught me that. It reminds me of better, simpler times. They weren’t
innocent by any stretch, but there was much less worry than there is now.
Everyone didn’t have a cell phone, the internet hadn’t gotten so dumb, wireless
didn’t exist (except for clunky phones), and nobody was “jihading” anybody. We were
still fighting in places, but folks weren’t getting their heads sawed off at
the grocery store either. They were good times.
However, nothing stays the same,
stagnation is inevitable and if we don’t keep on trucking then we’re done for.
For good reason Kevin needed to move on, and he did. To Santa Monica
California, and he has made it his own. Rising from the ashes like the phoenix
of old - his creation, the mighty ziggurat of communication the indomitable CHURCH OF TYPE is the gold
standard by which all letterpress is measured. I was in California, doing some
training with the Navy, and I hadn’t seen Kevin in some time. We reconnected
via social media, as people are want to do in the modern age. I found Pico
Boulevard, Santa Monica. This Temple of Typeface is hard to miss, and all day I
witnessed a stream of parishioners, penitents, and reprobates coming and going
as the spirit took them. The space, though smaller is filled with old memories,
and shelf upon shelf of ancient letterpress type. Kevin has the largest
letterpress in the Los Angeles area and is making good use of it. I arrived
Saturday morning, first thing after catching up we meet the neighbors. Pastry
Chefs! They make the best croissants and everything else that’s yummy. His
other neighbor is a Vietnamese lady that serves up Asian delights for lunch.
Across the street is Trader Joes. 
The Church of Type is filled with Art, Letterpress taken to
newer and more exalted heights of creativity and inventiveness. The Robot
Series! The Robot Series breaks into the building blocks of type. Turning them
literally into the circuitry boards of machinery creating a combination of
robotic-mechanized-monster-machines that will expand your notions, and make you
feel childlike with wonder once more. Vibrant hues, poetry, and robotic imagery
combine to challenge your imagination. The robotic nuance has been advanced
ten-fold. They speak, with magic eyes – it’s hard to believe two dimensions can
move in such a manner. The Robots are on the whirly-gig march, it’s time to
join their parade. Destructor, Voltor, Lovtron, and Transistor accept no
substitutes, these are 100% original and 110% Kevin Bradley at his finest.
Destined for fame and good fortune get yours today! Words are just words, to
truly appreciate Church of Type seeing is believing, and you won’t believe your
eyes brothers and sisters when you feast your eyes on the Robotic Mayhem of
Pico Boulevard.
It lunch time so me, Kevin, and his intern
jump into my tiny-small car and head out he gives directions. I follow directions.
We go to the Apple Pan and order burgers, thick Spanish accents, “Do you know
what you want?” I order a burger, this place is famous for its burgers. The
Apple Pan is a classic LA Diner. It’s owned and operated by some 2nd
and 3rd generation Mexican-Americans, and to say the place is
crowded and vibrant would actually be an understatement. A “U-Shaped” Linoleum
countertop with the masses crammed elbow to elbow and line almost out the door.
The humidity is palpable there’s no AC in LA it’s California weather, which is
typically low on the humidity and filled with cool breezes, but not today. The
lady sitting next to me, starts talking me up. We get on well, she’s a music
teacher and singer. For some reason, she keeps telling me how married she is. I
share my pie with her. She orders me a to go pie, all for me. It’s not weird,
I’m in California land of the strange. Meanwhile back at the shop………………..
The Church of Type - Brothers and sister is worthy of praise
and stands high on the mountain. Guaranteed to Illuminate, Educate, and provide
Revelations deeper understanding of the profound questions that vex mankind. To
Paraphrase Mr. Kevin Bradley, “When in doubt make art, be nice to people, and
you’ll be just fine.”
THE CHURCH OF TYPE
3215 PICO BOULEVARD
SANTA MONICACALIFORNIA
310-310-3951
WWW.CHURCHOFTYPE.COM
CHURCHOFTYPE@GMAIL.COM
all photos used with the kind permission of K. Bradley
No comments:
Post a Comment