Danielle Colby Striptease Historian | The Queen of Rust

Throwback Thursday: A weekend in LA

Added 2021-07-01 23:00:04 +0000 UTC

A few years back I met Haley and Soda in LA, we had a list of fun things to do, and really incredible people to meet.

Highest on my list of incredible adventures for this trip was Reuniting with my old BFF Misha Smith from my late teens, early twenties out west, until I moved from Arizona back to Iowa. We lost touch for a few years because we both moved homes so often and No cell phones back then for us we were broke. We had been planning this reunion for a long time. She drove across California to be with me. What a beautiful friend. I’m truly blessed.

I had the privilege of being introduced to Robert Williams by my friend and fellow art collector Greg Escalante. In the late 20th and 21st centrury diverse forms of commonplace and popular art appeared to be coalescing into a formidable faction of new painted realism. The phenomenum owed its genesis to a number of factors. The new school of imagery was a product of art that didn’t fit comfortably into the accepted definition of fine art. It embraced some of the figurative graphics that formal art academia tended to reject: comic books, movie posters, trading cards, surfer art, hot rod illustration, to mention a few.

This alternative art movement found its most congealing participant in one of America’s most opprobrious and maligned underground artists, the painter, Robert Williams. It was this artist who brought the term “lowbrow” into the fine arts lexicon, with his ground breaking 1979 book, The Lowbrow Art of Robt. Williams. It was from this point that the seminal elements of West Coast Outlaw culture slowly started to aggregate.

Williams pursued a career as a fine arts painter years before joining the art studio of Ed “Big Daddy” Roth in the mid-1960’s. And in this position as the famous custom car builder’s art director, he moved into the rebellious, anti-war circles of early underground comix. *Bio From www.robtwilliamsstudio.com

My friend Greg also facilitated an amazing photo shoot in LA down the street from the Globe Theater downtown. Misha and Haley came with for entertainment and support.

We ate, we drank, and drank, we went to galleries, we drank, we drank at the beach, then had a beautiful dinner where we drank some more.😬

Jen from Sugarpuss clothing invited us to tour her work studio which was incredible! We tried on everything!

My dear friend and writing mentor Leslie Zemeckis met us for a brunch and gossip date. It was great catching up on projects and talking burlesque history.

And of course it wouldn't be a night in LA without a trip to the ER to rehydrate and embrace the strut of shame back to the hotel in the early morning light.

Gotta love Los Angeles!