Author: Kaitlyn Reeser
At first glance, Café de Leche appears to be typical of the trendy coffee shops that can be found on so many street corners in college towns. An orange vintage bicycle hangs from one of the high ceilings, varying shapes and sizes of MacBooks form a line down the tables, and the sound of the barista making a cappuccino drowns out the music in the background. Amidst all this I still stop to notice the artwork.
Between the massive portrait of George Washington, a photo of an unenthusiastic group at a 1950s dinner party and a tribal-looking lithograph, the pieces are extremely diverse, mismatched even, but they look surprisingly at home together.
This is Found Art. Coordinated by Kit Warchol ’10, Laila Tootoonchi ’10 and Elsa Henderson (sophomore), the show is a compilation of abandoned art: pieces of work that have been left in thrift stores, yard sales and even the trash. Most of the pieces are unsigned, leaving the artists unknown. I spoke with Warchol, the Arts Coordinator for Café de Leche, about how this unique show was conceived.
“My friends and I have been collecting pieces like this for a while now. It was interesting how the show ended up being so cohesive. It was very revealing of the alignment of our friendship,” Warchol said, referring to Tootoonchi and Henderson. “I really appreciate the anonymity of found art. We don’t know a lot about these works, and that’s what makes them so interesting.”
The public has largely agreed. Following a very successful opening night, the café has sold many of its featured pieces. The method of pricing, however, was initially a tough issue. “All pricing is done by offer,” Warchol said. “By not pricing the works ourselves, we skirted the issue of putting a set value on something that wasn’t originally ours. It is much more about what the piece is worth to the individual who is interested in it.”
The openness of this method has been quite revealing of the diversity of the show itself. “There hasn’t been very much overlap in what people are interested in purchasing. There aren’t pieces that have necessarily stood out as being more popular than others; all the inquiries have been really individual,” Warchol said.
Perhaps the variation and individuality in the works of art can be attributed to the dynamically unique nature of the area from which they originated. All of the pieces were discovered in corners of northeast Los Angeles, but they specifically speak to the quirky characteristics of the Highland Park neighborhood.”Everything in this show is original,” Warchol said. She gestures over to a paint-by-numbers piece that was done by a 12-year-old boy in 1957.
On the adjacent wall is a vintage photograph of a bemused-looking shirtless man wearing an elaborate crown. Splatter paintings on pieces of thrown-out plywood seem entirely natural next to gestural screen prints. One thing is for certain: Each work has a story behind it, and it is the culmination of these stories that give the Found Art show such rich character.
“In some ways,” Warchol said, “the site and locale become more important than the art itself. The place that a piece was abandoned is probably the most important thing about it.”
Looking out the window of Café de Leche, I get a distinct sense of the diversity Warchol is talking about. A sign with an arrow points to Occidental College (after all, the campus is only a half mile away). Nearby, a piñata store, a questionable-looking pet shop and the parlor where my roommate got her tattoo are nestled together almost effortlessly. This break from predictability is what sets Café de Leche apart from other run-of-the mill coffee shops.
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