I’m in the process of taking down the old Lee Joseph Publicity for the Visual Arts website – and found this, my very first blog post on the site – thought I’d move it here and share….
The first LJP blog.
Monday 29 Oct, 2007
Time: 11:10 PM
I’m christening this blog with a welcome and thanks! The idea forLJP materialized during the summer of 2006. I had been running Dionysus Records, a small independent record label for many years and needed something fresh. At the time, I was considering starting a dog walking business. A friend,Lisa Erickson who was in the process of starting a fashon design company, had made a very aggressive point via phone conversation, that I should do something more than walk dogs all day (uuuh…excuse me…I love dogs) by the very fact that I had cultivated a lot of resources and was surrounded by a bevy of creativity from a lot of talented friends. A few days later while having drinks at a very lively multi-media art, photography, live-painting and fashion show in Culver City at Black Cat Gallery headed up by LA punk rock producer legend and friend Gexa X …an idea came to my slightly buzzed head which kind of floated around until two days later, on a Monday. While sitting silent on the sofa, I was hit with a revelation and wrote up two pages of ideas for a visual art publicity company, keeping in mind my music background. I called a group of people including friends, favorite artists and some who had designed record jackets for Dionysus including Shag, Heather Watts, Lisa Petrucci, Andrew Brandau, Chantal Menard, Bobby Green andCarol Moore of Bigfoot Lodge/Saints and Sinners and Jay Naylor of M Modern Gallery, with the legendary Billy Shire recieving my first call on the subject…each one was asked their opinion on the ideas. All were very positive and supportive, most telling me that what I had in mind did not exist on this level. Billy Shire was the first to hire me to work the “Glenn Barr’s Haunted Paradise” book. Heather Watts came aboard shortly thereafter. I didn’t even have a business card or website or email address other than my Dionysus Records account.
Backtracking for a moment, I had done a three year stint at the log-cabin motif Bigfoot Lodge booking bands and started the groundwork for publicity work when we stopped having live music and went with a seven-night DJ schedule….At the suggestion of Bobby Green, I had kept my Wednesday night, shifted to a four-hour DJ set…and started doing publicity for the bar. I still DJ at Bigfoot every Wednesday and also spin every Thursday night at one of Bobby’s other amazing bars, Saints and Sinners. The bars have become a part of the visual art publicity company as these are very much “high-concept” theme establishments, every bit as much art and eye candy as they offer liquid, social and musical treats.
Thanks goes to all my initial supporters, clients, all my press contacts and friends in and beyond the vibrating Los Angeles art scene for their support and again my clients for their patience in hanging with a company that is just starting out…rough spots and all. Thanks to an early supporter, Leora Lutz from Gallery Revisited who designed my business card…that design became the basis of the look of this site. Thanks to Jeff Turney of The Next Level for desinging this site.
