Downtown Art Walk Finds Perfect Leader

One of the reasons it's been so hard to replace Art Walk founder Bert Green is that even though Art Walk happens but once a month,  it's growing complexity and size now requires whoever runs it to have six different skill sets just to manage what it's become and another half-dozen to help it become what it needs to be.


It also also requires someone who can connect and communicate with everyone Downtown from the homeless to musuems trustees, from college kids out for a good time to property owners, from gallery owners to artists and who also has an inside knowledge about what makes our unique neighborhood work that only a local could possibly have to even be considered as a viable candidate.


Sounds pretty impossible - right? Well, read the resume of our new Downtown Art Walk Executive Director, Jay Lopez. 

Downtown Los Angeles, CA – December 15, 2009 - The Downtown Los Angeles Art Walk, a nonprofit corporation that oversees the popular “Art Walk” event held each month in historic Downtown Los Angeles, today announced the appointment of Jay Lopez as the organization’s new Executive Director. Mr. Lopez is an active member of both the East Hollywood Neighborhood Council Arts & Culture Committee and the Silver Lake Neighborhood Council Arts & Culture Committee, as well as the Silver Lake Gallery Alliance. Jay serves on the board of the Los Angeles Conservancy Modern Committee as the Education/Outreach council chair and is also on the board of directors for the Hollywood Fringe Festival 2010. Mr. Lopez is an accomplished event producer and coordinator whose recent credits include Beyond Eden, a new contemporary art fair, East of Eden, a multi-gallery exhibition and art fair at the Los Angeles Municipal Gallery, CA Boom Design Show held this year at the former Robinsons department store in Beverly Hills, The East Hollywood ArtCycle Street Festival and The Silver Lake & East Hollywood Day of the Dead Festival.

Congratulations Jay, a former tenant of the Spring Arts Tower on the floor right above me (not that I could ever recognize him, of course), and congratulations to the Art Walk Board for making such an inspired choice.  It is rare for a job description and an applicant's resume to ever so perfectly match.