"Treasure Out Of Darkness"
Artist Statement
Pandemic, upheaval, social justice movements. These are the fabric of our day. And right now L.A. is the epicenter of this global earthquake called COVID. It is what it is. But what will we make of it? What will we create from this time? I feel like now is a good time to talk with our families about it. To create. To find new ways to shift our culture. Thanks for sitting down with us for a few minutes while we look for treasure in the darkness together. This is our love letter, from two L.A. artists to everyone struggling right now worldwide. Our hearts go out to you and your familias in this trying time.
Biographies
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Daniel French
Born and raised in L.A.'s San Gabriel Valley, Daniel French works as a songwriter and composer as well as touring musician/co-founder of L.A. band Las Cafeteras. When he is not scouring the city's best taco spots, he's cooking up musical ways to transform the world! With Las Cafeteras, French has performed with the likes of Michael Franti, Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeroes, and the Gypsy Kings. He has graced stages from WOMAD (UK, NZ, & Australia) to Montreal Jazz, from Bonnaroo to the Hollywood Bowl, and his music has been featured at Bernie Sanders rallies, in PBS documentaries and TV series including Kamau Bell's United Shades of America, Party of Five, and Bajo El Mismo Cielo. French earned an MFA in social art at Otis College of Art & Design. #MusicIsMedicine
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Alicia French
Born in L.A. and raised in San Gabriel, Alicia French is a costume designer based in Covina, California. Throughout her 40-year career in costumes, her work has graced countless Southern California theater stages, celebrity parties, parades, music videos and independent films, as well as projects for corporations and mascots. French’s costume shop, Alicia’s Costumes, is located in downtown Covina, California, where she sells, rents and custom designs costumes.
Curated by Jason Arimoto and Petrice Oyama, Ukulele, Inc.
Curator's Statement
"Creativity takes on many forms at all levels and in unexpected places. Its meaningful expression exists everywhere but is often unseen. In our experience as creative arts entrepreneurs, music is often felt as a soundtrack underlying the rhythm of our daily lives.
In our curatorial partnership with The Music Center’s For the Love of L.A, we applied a socioeconomic lens to the scope of our project and were inspired by artists who’s creative, community-building strategies, not only contribute to local economic development, but also have a positive social impact on the City of Los Angeles.
Music is a part of the identity of each of our featured artists, whose pieces share expressions of strength, adaptability and resilience, from a perspective of everyday creativity with social and economic development activations.
Following the cancellation of the tour scheduled this year with his band, Las Cafeteras, Daniel French reflects on his experiences through music and visual storytelling, in a narrative portrait of his mother, Alicia, and their family business, Alicia’s Costumes."
