WeHo Artist Roundtable

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Hearing from the 2019 #wehoartist grant recipients at tonight’s Artist Roundtable. #wehoarts #westhollywood #weloveweho #art #artists #weho

A post shared by WeHo Arts (@wehoarts) on Dec 4, 2019 at 7:20pm PST

Thank you to #wehoarts for an amazing roundtable this past week! Honored to be among the 2018 grant recipients, and inspired by the work coming out of my former and beloved hometown.

New York When You Need It.

When I was a kid I would visit my grandfather in suburban New Jersey. He lived about a 30-minute train ride from New York City, the only home he’d known after being shipped off at 6 to live with relatives from Naples. 

Apparently, as I came to learn later from my mother, he was the youngest child of a large family that had been decimated by the influenza epidemic that swept through Europe following the First World War. Imagine this: you’re 6, your parents and most of your siblings are dead, and you’re taken by another family and brought back to the United States to work.

He landed, as my mother told me, on Ellis Island. The immigration officer couldn’t pronounce his name. So Philip DiMartini became Louis, and then, when he was adopted into his new home in Brooklyn, he lost his given last name, too. 

He lived in New York City until he and my grandmother moved to the calmer wilds of New Jersey. This was in the early 1970s. They bought a tiny cape cod house that at the time, was surrounded by cornfields and playgrounds. 

This I remember. I would drive with my family from Philadelphia to this red shingle house and play in the neighborhood, walking alone or with a friend to the streams and open spaces that defined the landscape. 

As you can imagine, that place is long gone. The last time I was there was 20 years ago, in 1999. And by then it had already developed into a sprawling megalopolis of office park towers, condo complexes, and strip malls. That was the last time I saw him. He passed away a few years later. I was living in California at the time, and didn’t have a chance to see him before he died.

That’s not really the point of this story, though. During those years I spent coming to see him I would ask him, as I watched him take on the growing metropolis around him, “Pop, do you ever go back into the city?” 

And he’d always say the same thing: 

“No. I don’t want to go back. I just like knowing that it’s there if I need it.”

He’d say it with a little half smile and add nothing more. I never really understood what he meant by that.

Until now.

Weho Is

Got the postcards back from the printer. My goal is to put something lovely out in the world - and tell people about my current work.

One one side: an image from the Portraits of Weho project I started this spring, with a grant from the West Hollywood Arts Commission. On the other, a simple phrase: Weho Is:

Weho is - It’s a phrase that encapsulates for me what I think about when I think about this project. Weho is. It’s so many things to so many people. Depending on your perspective, it can be heaven or sometimes a little slice of hell.

I’m not immune to its problems, and I live through its disruptions and evaluations. And despite all that comes with living here, I can’t deny that when I wake up in the morning to the song of birds, or walk down streets shading in the arms of an elegantly scarred ficus, that beneath all the chaos and traffic lives a magnificent soul.

For me, right now, Weho is: Beautiful.

Jared Fortunato Photography Awarded WeHo Arts Commission Grant

I was sitting at my desk today going through my files when I heard the comforting (and still distracting) “ping” of an email notification on my computer. I was carefully labeling my files in long hand, and struggled to place my block letters in the space provided. My sharpie smudged. Oh well. At least I’d spelled “receipts” right.

I turned to my email and saw the subject line first, in all CAPS:

WEHO ARTIST GRANT APPLICATION_JARED FORTUNATO

My heart skipped a beat. Cliché. And it did. Definitely stopped breathing for a second. I opened the email and started scanning, steeling my heart for possible disappointment.

I’d applied for a WeHo Artist Grant a few months ago, back in October, and had been waiting ever since to hear back. My proposal was based on the idea of a “Portrait of West Hollywood, an exhibition that explores the beauty and diversity of the city and its people.” My goal for the project was to celebrate my home, this little spot in the world that gave me comfort and support during some difficult times.

I knew it’d take a bit of time, so I’d remember to forget about it and go about my business.

Luckily, the person on the other end of the email must have some experience with artists and their fragile egos, for the first line was:

“Congratulations!”

Illustrated: September

Another shoot for my "Illustrated" project. Besides working with the light and the location, the greatest challenge is finding models to work with on a regular basis. I'm lucky that I have patient friends that are generous with their time and resources.

I'm thinking now I need to figure out how to make a larger project with my current limitations: time, models, equipment. I remember back in one of my classes we had an assignment that encouraged us to embrace these limitations as creative opportunities.

I think I will do just that.

"Illustrated, PVS" Jared Fortunato, 2018

The Good News

"Hollywood" a solo exhibition by Jared Fortunato @ the Los Angeles Center for Digital Art
Exhibition Dates: July 12th - August 4th 2018
Artist Reception: July 14th, 6-9 pm
Los Angeles Center for Digital Art | 104 East 4th Street, LA | CA

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I have news to share— great news. One month shy of my graduation and thesis show, I’ve got two more events on the horizon. Big ones.

First, my Hollywood project will be showing in a solo exhibition at the Los Angeles Center for Digital Art, opening reception July 14th. The show runs until August 4th, and if you weren’t able to make it up to San Francisco to see it there, now’s your chance. All 8 pieces will be included as well as two new large scale prints from the project that haven’t been exhibited publicly before. I’m humbled and excited.

Second: One of my prints was selected into the Los Angeles Center for Photography’s member show. That’s a big deal to me: they had over 1,200 submissions, and one of my images made the top 40 cut. Again, humbled, thrilled, and excited. *more on that in another post.

And yet.

Part of me, honestly, feels a little strange promoting my work on social media, to friends, on my website. I can’t see past the horrifying events in the news: the detentions, the separations, the utter collapse of compassion at the highest levels.

Who am I to talk about my art?

I thought about this question a lot. And I realized very quickly that I don’t have the luxury of sitting back and feeling scared. My art is my service. I wrote in my thesis that my goal as a photographer was to bring light into dark places, to record the beauty of the mundane, to document the magic of the everyday.

I’d let the tragedy of our current political moment distract me from my purpose. That’s the most  frightening thing I realized as I sat to construct this little post: how effectively I’d been rendered hopeless. Helpless. Immobilized by the forces that would have me believe that nothing I could do could help.

Forget that.

I’m an artist. I use my craft to understand the world a little better, and hope that you, by viewing it, will be inspired to use your gift to bring more light into the world.

Come out if you can- to either event. And no worries if you can’t. All I ask is that you look for your gift, your light, and shine it bright.

Los Angeles Center for Photography: Instagram Takeover

Jared Fortunato Photography | LACP Instagram Takeover
Monday, May 28th - Sunday June 3rd 2018

Follow along here:
LACP: @la_centerofphoto

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Starting tomorrow I’ll be taking over the Instagram feed for the Los Angeles Center for Photography! I love Instagram takeovers. I was lucky enough to commandeer the APA-LA’s feed a few months ago, and am thrilled to repeat the experience with the kind folks at the LACP.

For those of you not familiar, the LACP supports the community through educational and cultural programming designed to advance photography as an art form. It’s an amazing organization, founded by the legendary Julia Dean. It operates as a non-profit and on a membership basis, and I can say first hand if you’re into photography at any level, it’s well worth it.

Check this space for updates, be sure to follow the LACP (and me, if you’re so moved) over the next week. I'll be following the late spring light around our fair city capturing that LA magic.

I’m really excited to share new work with you!

"Pink Noise" @ LACDA

Wanted to share the story of my latest piece, now on display at the LACDA's "Pink Noise" exhibit.

I completed this piece by compositing several different original photos. I call it “Eurynome,” after the archaic Greek goddess of creation.

The story goes that Eurynome rose from the dark, watery void of nothingness and began to dance. Her dance created a wind on the waters. The wind transformed into a serpent called Ophion. She mated with the serpent, and from that union came the cosmic egg which exploded into all of creation—all matter, all life, all energy.

What I love about this story is that Eurynome transcended gender and contained all that was needed for life to appear.  She wasn’t born from a man or in need of a mate. The serpent didn’t corrupt or bring her down. In fact, the union that produced all life came from within herself. From her dance. From her joy.

I like this creation story much better, don't you?

If you have a chance, come view it in person.

J