Suzanne Erickson is constantly surprised to find that she is just like her parents. “I used to get really freaked out when my dad would dig for junk. I’m exactly like my dad now,” she laughs. “I drive through the alleys of Beverly Hills looking for someone else’s garbage.” Suzanne and I are sharing a couch in her studio that might have been garbage itself, were it not for her magnificent reappropriation, inscribing the upholstery with a florid patchwork of paint and needlepoint. She tells me this sort of transformative creativity is inherited from her mother—a woman who would disassemble a bed and convert it into a wet bar in the scant free hours between ferrying Suzanne to and from day school.

Adam Szymczak was born in the year One Thousand Nine Hundred and Eighty Seven. He was raised in a quaint New England town, and studied English at Suffolk University. He has always drawn and doodled, but only recently became truly interested in it. His comic book fury can be witnessed at: http://www.goodshowsir.com.

During parties, especially ones in designer-conscious downtown Los Angeles lofts, the couch is coveted territory. People have just spent twenty minutes making polite non-committal remarks around the kitchen island, and all anyone wants to do, at this point, is rest on the cushions and maybe squeeze an end pillow. However, the same competitive drive that applies to every other aspect of life in the city is amplified here. The people on the couch are ruthless motherfuckers.

Don’t let its title deceive you, Irish Girl, Tim Johnston’s latest book is a collection of eight short stories that explore life and happenings in small town USA. Hailing from Iowa, Johnston knows a thing or two about the ugly secrets that can often exist buried within the confines of a seemingly sleepy, small town. While the stories within Irish Girl vary in plot and theme, they do share similar small town settings in which such things as murders, love affairs, and lies are uncovered and dispersed from one gossiping townsperson to the next.

The opening reception Saturday night at James Gray Gallery at Bergamot Station Art Center in Santa Monica was where I was introduced to the work of some incredible and incredibly eclectic artists: Morris B. Squire, Susan Rosman, Thom Surman, Marylyn English, David Cook, and Kitty Rocquemore. James Gray Gallery is divided into five separate spaces. Strolling through the gallery, I got my fill of some of my favorite components of art: colors, textures, composition, and fantastically disturbing whimsy.