Sundown Salon #20: SALON SALON

DATE: July 10th, 2005, 2-9pm

FEATURING: designers - Bruiser & Gamut {Christopher Kreiling & Alex May}, Bettina Hubby, Brian Lichtenberg, LD Tuttle {Richard Lidinsky}, Oumi {Mayumi Date}, Bon & Ging {Nanette & Grace Sullano}, Feral Childe {Moriah Carlson & Alice Wu} - photographers - Eve Fowler, Alix Lambert, Sabina McGrew, Dean Sameshima, Nicolas Wagner, Austin Young - hair and make-up - Katie Brennan, Aiko Hachisuka, Molly Owen, Awny Rael - facials and tarot readings - Dave Burns - stylist - Danielle Kays

Sundown Salon hosts an afternoon and evening of transformation through hair, make-up, facials, body decoupage, fashion and all things salon. Willing and able stylists, designers, artists and general lay people are invited to spend the day both making over and being made over, while documented by photographers roaming throughout the Sundown house and gardens. Everyone at Salon Salon, including all guests, artists, models, the designers, photographers and stylists from Los Angeles & beyond, enter the cave where they change into clothes and accessories by various designers, and visit the dome for hair and make-up. Later they roam the deck and gardens for styling & shoots.As a climax to the day of transformations there is a special musical performance by OK Go in the cave at sundown. A team from Index Magazine is on hand to conduct interviews, which along with the photos and documentation from Salon Salon will become the fall fashion editorial in their September issue. It's a marathon preparation for the formal photo-shoot that never happens. The preparations are the project, exposing the process of childlike dress-up and human vanity at it's best. The salon of hair and make-up becomes performance and sculpture. The salon of conversation and ideas considers our fascination with human appearance and transformation. participants include:

katie brennan ( make-overs / director, sister)

dave burns ( facials, therapy & tarots)

moriah carlson (body decoupage and wax-tique / designer / artist / feral childe / n.y.c.)

mayumi date (designer / oumi)

eve fowler (photographer)

aiko hachisuka (cutting hair / artist)

bettina hubby (designer)

danielle kays (stylist / owner / south willard)

christopher kreiling (bruiser & gamut)

alix lambert (photographer)

brian lichtenberg (designer)

richard lidinsky (shoe & accessory designer / ld tuttle)

alex may (bruiser & gamut / chicago)

sabina mcgrew (photographer)

kimberli meyer (cutting hair / director, mak center)

molly owen (hairstylist)

dean sameshima (photographer)

nanette & grace sullano (designers / bon & ging)

nicolas wagner (photographer / n.y.c.)

alice wu ('body decoupage and wax-tique' / designer / artist / feral childe / n.y.c.)

austin young (photographer)

+ performance by OK Go

memories:

my most poignant memory (or maybe just the one that immediately springs to mind) is when I had just arrived and there was so much action swirling around in the beautiful trippy house that i felt like i'd gone down the rabbit hole - i sat down on the floor upstairs and looked up saw katie grinnan which was so perfect because she's always reminded me of alice in wonderland - and i asked her if i could put some makeup on her - when i started making up her face i thought how funny it was that we used to play around like that when we were little girls. it kind of highlighted this childlike experience i had throughout the day. i carried that memory with me for a while and it was nice.

- katie brennan

This day was like eating cake till you want to puke. Thank God the Index spread was so content-less, all the box quotes from me were unattributed. The things you'll say when you are drunk on vanity. Two moments. One. On realizing that nobody has thought to bring bobby pins Katie Grinnan's hair is put up with a big black paper clip -thrilling. Two. One of male models, that had been planted in the crowd, pops a boner in this ridiculous spandex number -thrilling.

- tom texas holmes

At the Sundown Salon Salon you had the pleasure of becoming more beautiful with the host and his friends and collaborators. Perhaps at some point during the afternoon you were reclining in a well chosen mid-century chair in a poly-carbon panel fronted garage converted work space with an area rug of the map of the globe at your feet. I was your official facialist and on-call tarot card reader. I mixed small batches of bentonite clay with my home-brew of fresh herbs and citrus fruits & applied the herby mud to the soon-to-be youthful faces of the Los Angeles counter-culture. While the mud cured, we read tarot cards and sipped tea (a mild reduction of the herbal infusion makes applying the facial mud in small batches twice as nice -- good for the inside and the outside).

The tarot card readings were intense. We learned about recent heartbreaks, and upcoming successes for the enthusiastic salon set. One young man (one of the models), confessed that his card reading was eerily accurate, explaining that he was in a custody battle with this ex-wife, and a local fashion designer proclaimed relief when she saw that her cards indicated immanent success on her horizon for career and recognition.

For me, there is nothing sweeter than hanging out with the subcultural fringe on the outskirts of hollywood sipping herbal teas and applying mud carefully above the brow of strangers who quickly become friends. A random photograph, the flash goes off in your face and you realize that you have cracked dried mud on your face while holding "SUCCESS" or the "six-of-cups" in your right hand. Smiling with the rug of the world at your feet... you feel as if life is happening in good ways all around you.

- david burns

a bevy of beautiful boys in boisterous outfits
a flutter of activity and clothing clatter
the logging of items in lists on yellow legal pads
glamour-professionals
painting a perfect picture of the business of looking good
digital cameras document the beginning and the middle, and not so much the end
because by then, even the most glamorous had been there for 8 hours
plenty of images of us all
in various casually playfully cool poses

the child within had a field day

if only we could do this every day
get away with being fabulous and eccentrically dressed
while drinking wine, eating colorful food
getting our hair and make-up done, our bodies decorated with neon threads and glitter
being pampered, interviewed, mud-masked and tarot-ed
photographed at our strangest/finest

it was the melting pot of everyone’s ‘me me me’
viewed, captured and then published

the rotundity of the space was the cherry on the sundae
rotating through that space
spiraling up the stairs and being worked on
like a conveyor belt of pampering
while watching through curved glass at strolling visions of dress-up

- bettina hubby