...What is a swapmeet?  

East Coasters always ask... It’s essentially a flea market.  This question underscores the locality of the words, pointing out that they are specific to the West Coast. Swapmeets are everywhere in the West Coast and some, like the Slauson Swap Meet, have been made famous in West Coast rap.  

We grew up going to swapmeets nearly every weekend, tagging along with our grandparents at the break of dawn and riding illegally amongst the boxes in the back of their customized white Toyota minivan.  Our grandparents worked at the swapmeet every weekend for years, selling video rewinders and novelty erasers imported from Taiwan. We would help out and watch all the strange characters pass through, everyone buying or selling something.  These are some of our earliest memories: the improvised look of each booth, everything on the go.  If we were good, at the end of each day our grandparents would let us buy one thing from the used book vendor next door.  We would get things like old paperback books published by Mad Magazine, full of jokes and innuendo that we were still too young to fully understand...

The Art Swap Meet has always been an experiment in how an ephemeral, mobile marketplace works within the desert, an environment of extremes where only the fit survive.  It provides a chance for its participants to test ideas, make artist direct sales, create works and experiences that might not be salable, or embrace the absurdity of setting up shop in a location where your customer may or may not show up.  In all, it's a beautiful spectacle where trading posts sprout up at sunrise and then evaporate like mirages...

This Saturday's Art Swapmeet will be the 5th time we’ve convened to give, trade and sell art and experiences at very affordable prices!  Always fun! Always great bargains and great artwork!! Come early, we start at 8pm and end at 1pm!  Don't miss the mirage!! ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________