Editor’s Note:

One year in publication… Unbelievable! I’m continually amazed how life progresses, how time seems to “fly,” how people and ideas converge, develop, and flourish together into collective lives of their own. This being the anniversary edition of FORTH—still the only publication in Los Angeles to unite art, literature, and journalism—we thought it appropriate to present the edition as our official “State of the Union” address—an exploration of converging art forms, industries, and of course people.

With his recent paintings, Michael Shankman reveals interiors and exteriors of collapsing homesteads from suburban areas of Colorado, the area where he grew up. Shards of color and structural elements are depicted in large, explosive compositions that stand in comparison to his careful and delicate renderings of small clusters of suburbia.

Chapter 1
THE PHOTOGRAPH

WHETHER BEAUTIFUL OR TERRIBLE, THE PAST IS ALWAYS A RUIN.

When I look back on my childhood, my earliest memories seemlike artifacts from a lost civilization: half-understood fragments behind museum glass. I remember the spherical alcohol lamp that glowed like a tiny ghost, ringed with dancing blue flames, which hung over the dining room table of the house where I grew up. I remember the sweet, oily smell of coal smoke, and the creaking of horse-drawn carriages on the dirt road outside. Most of all I remember
the summer twilight over the mountains and how, on certain evenings, just before the sun sank below the horizon, it cast rays so luminous and golden that they felt like a solid, enveloping close into which a small boy could simply disappear. An intensity no light today seems to match.

The following are photos of the Vox Humana Live Art Performance, which took place at the LA Art Show in January 2010.

(CREDITS: The one with the woman’s face is a collaboration between Retna and El Mac. The geometric one is by Kofie, and the city with the boy is by Mear One. The photo credit should be to Tommy Tung.)

When I think about marijuana, I think about district attorney Steve Cooley. Bongs, inner clarity, and cancer patients simply don’t exert the same visceral pull as the man who wants to be the next state attorney general. Steve Cooley is my personal figurehead of dope.