Art Story: Carole Garland

King Eddy Saloon, 2013, oil on canvas 40x30"

In my EDGELANDS  series of paintings at TAG Gallery I focused on places that had bad reputations, such as MacArthur Park, Jordan Downs, and Florence & Normandie.  When I read that a former colleague, Dan Fante, was reading his memoir, Fante: A Family”s Legacy of Writing, Drinking and Surviving at the King Eddy Saloon, on the outskirts of Skid Row, I checked it out.

The saloon, on the corner of 5th and Los Angeles, is on the ground floor of the King Edward Hotel, built in 1906.  It was designed and developed by Los Angeles architect John Parkinson, whose work included City Hall and Union Station.  The pre-Prohibition bar is a relic of another time.  John Fante featured the bar in his novel, “Ask the Dust,” later turned into a movie. James M. Cain visited the bar for background on The Postman Always Rings Twice and Charles Bukowski is rumored to have frequented the saloon.
A seedy, fallen angel,  the King Eddy Saloon/King Edward Hotel fit the bill of subjects with a tarnished past and is included in the EDGELANDS series.

Carole's work will be on view at TAG until May 18th