The result of an enchanting alchemy between the beach and the mountains, Santa Monica Canyon has a rustic beauty that draws a breed of its own. Canyon resident and gallery owner Frank Langen set out to document the community in photographs and the second of two exhibits, ‘Canyon People 2,’ with photos by Ralph Starkweather, will open this Saturday at Gallery 169 on West Channel Road. The show serves as both celebration and an informal taxonomy of those who choose the canyon as their home. Langen, who grew up in the canyon and in Europe, bought a home of his own on West Channel in 1994. A founding partner in the real estate brokerage firm Deasy/Penner & Partners, he says the impetus for this project came from the real estate business. ‘I’ve met so many amazing people and gotten really close to them,’ Langen says. ‘You really get to know who people are through a real estate transaction’are they generous, are they nervous, are they mean-spirited, what’s their character? Do you want them in the trenches with you if something happens?’ Though he hesitates a moment before saying so, his years in the business also made him realize ‘the impermanence of everything’that we can all be sitting here one moment and then we’re not.’ It would hit home when the siblings or children of someone he’d sold a house to asked him to value the home for the late owner’s estate. ‘Or I’d meet someone who would walk by the gallery from the beach to Sycamore, a vibrant old guy, who lived in this great house, and three months later I’d get a call from the trustee that the house is for sale.’ So he decided that he wanted to document this moment in time, the Santa Monica Canyon as he knows it. His own background as a photographer made the choice of that medium a natural one. He chose Starkweather to execute the project. Starkweather grew up in Santa Monica, but has worked around the world as a photographer. At one of Langen’s openings, he took a shot of the simple, but striking gallery’a two-story, modern, cantilevered glass and steel building’and later slipped a 4′-by-6′ black-and-white print of the shot under the gallery door. Langen loved the image, kept it on his desk for months, and a relationship grew. The criteria for ‘Canyon People’ were simple: the subjects had to live or work there and have some sort of experience or personal connection with Langen. The list includes about 150 people in all: singles, couples and families, old and young, renters and homeowners, together with restaurant owners, waiters, a valet, a bartender, a mailman and a homeless man who has been a local fixture (and a productive one, constantly sweeping the sidewalks of West Channel clean) since the mid-1980s, according to Langen. It was a big project, with Starkweather photographing groups of as many as 14 people at once, and wrangling plenty of children and dogs for the shots. But he found the process ‘just a joy.’ Architect Doug Suisman, his wife Moye Thompson, a ceramist, and their kids Claire, 12, and Teddy, 10, participated. Doug has lived in the same house in Santa Monica Canyon since his single days, 18 years ago. Like the growing house, the canyon has changed over time. ‘We want places that are alive and are always evolving,’ he says, but ‘the canyon holds onto its history and its tradition.’ Suisman, who designs urban districts and public spaces, has a quote from Winston Churchill on his firm’s Web site: ‘We shape our cities and our cities shape us.’ Asked how the canyon shapes its residents, he says, it ‘demands a kind of openness, informality and tolerance that always draws a certain kind of people here.’ Langen agrees. ‘I see this amazing sort of common denominator of the souls that congregate and choose to live here. There’s this common thread of creativity and we’re honoring that.’ For Julie Hendricks, the canyon is alive with energy. She’s lived there since 1967 and says it’s ‘the best place to raise children’ because of the burbling creek, the beach and the park at the Rustic Canyon Recreation Center. It’s ‘like a little paradise.’ Hendricks grew up in the heat of San Bernardino, and after World War II her father used leftover materials to build a little summer beach house in the canyon. She moved back to the area after a divorce, when her children were 2, 7 and 9, and rented a small house on East Rustic Road just across from the creek. She recalls ‘hearing the frogs in the spring and Dale Hale playing his banjo, echoing through the canyon.’ A friend of the family ultimately helped her with a $4,000 down payment on a house in 1969 and she’s been there ever since. Hendricks taught at Washington, John Muir and Roosevelt elementary schools and still volunteers weekly at Roosevelt in Santa Monica. On the first Earth Day, in 1970, she resolved to bike to work. She would ride with a friend and ‘we would solve all the problems of the world on our bike ride,’ she laughs. She still uses a bike to get groceries, library books and volunteer at school. ‘I try to bike every day,’ Hendricks says, adding that her rides sometimes take her up steep Temescal Canyon Road. But some days she substitutes tennis. ‘I know that I’m 77,’ she says, ‘but I’m in denial.’ Danny Robinson and Hylton Lea, who have lived in an apartment almost next door to the gallery for more than 10 years, ‘felt honored to be a part of the project,’ Robinson says. For them, the magic of the canyon resides in simple pleasures like being able to walk to the beach every day and run uphill to Will Rogers park from their house. In a way, ‘Canyon People’ is also a piece of performance art, as most of the subjects will come together for the exhibit’s opening, checking out their neighbors and their own photographs for the first time (other than in a very few cases, Langen and Starkweather were given discretion to choose which image to hang and the subjects did not review the results of their photo shoot). Most of Langen’s openings are convivial, neighborly affairs. The crowd varies depending on the art, but most events include kids chasing each other through the small yard and up the hill, more than a few dogs as guests, old friends excited to renew acquaintance and others caught up in a lively chat for the first time. But the first ‘Canyon People’ show, last December, was even more than that. ’This thing exploded,’ Langen says. ‘People were in love with themselves. It could have been a complete disaster,’ he acknowledges, since no one really knew what to expect, but ‘it really moved people.’ Suisman credits Langen with doing something special for the neighborhood. ‘Frank is such a great asset to the canyon. He always had the vision of creating this community space and gallery and now he’s done it. It’s really a gift to the community.’ Gallery 169 opened in the fall of 2008, even though Langen’s source of income, the real estate market, had come to a screeching halt. His early exhibits showcased artists he viewed as local treasures, like Julius Shulman, Peter Gowland, Peter Alexander and Don Bachardy. (Both Shulman and Gowland have since died. Gowland’s wife Alice was photographed for Canyon People seated next to a large-format camera her husband invented.) The idea for the gallery originally grew out of Langen’s interest in photography, but it’s become more than that, he says, pleased with Suisman’s notion of the space as a community center. ‘It’s been a really soul-nourishing endeavor.’ Langen lives with his life partner Diana, 9-year-old Max, 9-year-old Anouk and their 17-month-old son Levi near the gallery. Those who are part of Canyon People 2 will get another gift from Langen: once the exhibit is over, their photographs will be theirs to keep. ’I’m actually for the first time starting to get a little sad because we’re at the back end of this,’ Starkweather says. ‘I was thinking ‘oh, my gosh, can we do Canyon People 3?” Starkweather says. Some residents who couldn’t be part of the first show, like Ray Kappe and his wife, Shelly, were ‘musts’ for Langen, and spurred his commitment to a second show. But the process has now come to a close. He notes that two of the people photographed for the first show, restauranteur Giorgio Baldi and longtime resident Claire Vaughn, have already passed away. ‘I feel like the idea was to capture a moment in time,’ Langen says. ‘How long is a moment?’ he wonders aloud. ’That’s the idea. Here it is ‘ and then it’s gone.’ ‘Canyon People 2’ will open with a reception from 5 to 9 p.m. on Saturday, December 10 at Gallery 169, 169 W. Channel Rd. in Santa Monica Canyon. Other gallery hours by appointment: (310) 963-3891.
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