Out on the streets of Los Angeles

A car painted by the late artist Keith Haring, on display at the Geffen Contemporary in Little Tokyo.

I am a child of suburbia.

I have always lived in the suburbs. I got my driver license at 16 and never looked back. I even lived in San Francisco, where parking spots are like mythical beasts, and only took public transportation during a dark period when my car was broken and I couldn't afford to fix it.

So I am unused to trains, buses, taxis, and subways. But I'm learning.

My husband, a seasoned traveler, always takes public transportation, and I have learned so much from him. The first experience was a Friday night when we were battling traffic on the 405 to get to the Wiltern Theater. He opined that it would be faster if we parked the car in Universal City and took the Metro.

Dresses by Adelle Burda, Monica Lhuillier,
and Chan Luu —all FIDM alumni —at
FIDM's Little Black Dress exhibit.

I was skeptical, but I didn't want to miss Fountains of Wayne, so we did, and it was great. No parking hassles; we just popped up out of the station across the street from the Wiltern.

Little by little, I have ventured out alone, taking the Metrolink and the Metro to my job in downtown LA. But I decided to go all out for the mad German psychic's birthday. Barbara was feeling the need to get out of the Antelope Valley, so I planned a surprise outing.

We drove to the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising in downtown Los Angeles for our first stop, parked, and ventured the rest of the way by Metro, Dash and bus.

"LBD (Little Black Dress): An Homage to Breakfast at Tiffany's" is a great little show, with designer black dresses against a background of Tiffany blue. There are dresses from designers like Lagerfeld and Chanel, as well as contributions from FIDM alumni.

Givenchy, who dressed Audrey Hepburn for the classic film, did a line by line recreation of the iconic dress she wears while wistfully staring into Tiffany's window with a cup of coffee and a pastry in hand.

On one wall are drawings by current FIDM fashion design students, with their renderings of how they imagine the LBD for today, complete with fabric swatches. Those drawings are particularly interesting, and demonstrate the creativity of these students. Admission to the gallery is free; follow the link above for more information.

The birthday girl, wearing her new necklace from FIDM,
across the street from El Cielito Lindo, home of the killer taquito.

The museum gift shop is full of Audrey Hepburn things, as well as lots of books, jewelry, home goods, and cards. Barbara found beaded jewelry on a sale table and went wild. In fact, all day, she was buying things and putting them on, so her look had completely altered by the end of the day.

The second stop was lunch, which we reached by taking the Purple Line from 7th and Hope to Union Station. Olvera Street is right across from the beautiful train station, and at the end is El Cielto Lindo, home of the best taquitos in the world. We had two taquitos smothered in guacamole sauce, with beans and a tamale.

The transportation gods were smiling on us; we tried to board a bus going the wrong direction, but had the wits to ask, and the right bus came within minutes. Over the course of the day, we had to ask a lot of questions, but everyone was very friendly. They probably thought we were tourists.

"Help me, Boo Boo!" Outside the Geffen Contemporary.

Barbara wanted to go to the Museum of Contemporary Art, which isn't as simple as you might think. There are three locations. We were on our way to the MOCA Grand, and there is one on Melrose, and the Geffen Contemporary in Little Tokyo. The Grand Ave. location has lots of abstract expressionists: Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, and Franz Kline, as well as pop artists.

If you show your Metro ticket, you get two-for-one admission, which is good for all three locations. We had a great afternoon for $10, and the exhibit is free on Thursdays from 5 to 8 p.m.

MOCA Grand is showing Andy Warhol's soup cans, which didn't thrill me, but the photography was wonderful. Robert Frank's black and whites of street life from his 1959 watershed book "The Americans," were transportive.

We really wanted to see "Art in the Streets" at the Geffen Contemporary, so we moved on. One docent told us that there was a shuttle bus that would take us, but apparently that only runs on weekends, because the Dash bus doesn't. So we had to walk to the corner and catch the "A" Dash to Little Tokyo, which cost 50 cents.

A tile piece from Invader, a French street artist.

My husband and I had just watched Exit Through the Gift Shop, about street artists like Banksy and Shepard Fairey, so it was wonderful that the first thing I recognized was a tile Space Invader from the French artist "Invader" looking over the room.

Between the restrooms, the long-legged signature character of Monsieur Andre was spray-painted in black. I highly recommend the film, by the way; it is very entertaining and thought-provoking about the business of art.

There is just so much energy radiating from this exhibit. The space is huge, and in some places carved into smaller rooms to provide more wall space.

One of the first things is a huge wall make up of doors depicting in black and white what looks like dead birds and rats, things you would see lying on a city street. But the wall is interactive and when you move the doors, the interior of the animals can be seen in color.

There is so much going on in the building, that I didn't even see it all. There are Keith Harings: a painted car as well as chalk on black construction paper. On intersecting walls are hundreds of landscape-shaped snapshots of subway cars and trains graffittied with names.

Ultima Suprema Deluxa, A 1961 Cadillac
by artist Kenny Scharf, done in 1981.

A 1961 Cadillac has been turned into a multimedia wonderland: a pink apatosaurus with radio tubes glued to his back rides proudly on the hood, while the back deck is crowded with plastic monsters, space creatures, mythical creatures, Indian teepees and more dinosaurs.

Giant gag toothbrushes are affixed to the windshield wipers, and candy-colored designs are everywhere. I could look at it for hours and feel like I didn't see all the details.

My favorite section of the exhibit recreates an urban landscape: narrow streets, a junkyard with taggers standing on top of a van, a mini-mart, do-it-yourself open-air tattoo parlor, check cashing place, and the Church of the Open Tab.

Interior of the Church of the Open Tab, where it is always 5:07 pm. 

The graffiti-marked streets wind around, and above them is a profusion of signs, just like the ubiquitous billboards in poor neighborhoods. But instead of advertising Hennessy and Black Velvet, these are Day-Glo with a variety of messages, some uplifting. My favorite was " "I paid the light bill just so I could see your face." Quite romantic, no?

The Church of the Open Tab has a jukebox instead of an altar, the floor is littered with empty Tecate cans, and the clock is permanently set to 5:07 p.m. The back wall is made of stained glass.

This urban landscape is multi sensory: Banda music plays from cracked speakers tuned up so loud that they distort, just like on Broadway and 6th.

A hoodie-clad tagger prays in front
of stained glass graffiti window.

I leave it to others to discuss the importance of the show, or street art itself, for that matter. I don't think anyone still equates art with beauty. Is this show glamorizing vandalism? Maybe, but it also shows how art will out; how artistic impulse bubbles up from under poverty, grime and despair like plants forcing themselves through cracks in asphalt to make itself known.

"Art in the Streets" was wonderful, but we were getting a little worried about beating rush hour, so we abandoned a small portion of the show to get back to our car. I was already making mental plans to come back.

Outside, we realized that our middle-age bodies were done walking, and my smartphone was telling me that a bus ride back to FIDM involved changing buses, so we caught a cab. In a white shirt and tie, the man was the best dressed cabbie I'd ever seen, and Barbara was impressed that his car smelled "like candy."

So, all in all, I think I did pretty well. I didn't get us lost, and we spent the day exploring without having to worry about finding and paying for parking. It helps that Barbara is a world-traveler too, and uses transit everywhere (except LA).