Around May 15, 1970, An appearance by Paige Young at the Pasadena Art Museum (PAM) was recorded by Marvene Jones of the Los Angeles Evening News, and her photographer. Jones’ column, The Social Butterfly, Focused on hip happenings of the LA social set.

The occasion at PAM was a gala opening for the new Andy Warhol exhibit.

Warhol himself makes an appearance, obviously a big deal.

Los Angeles Evening Citizen 5/16/1970

Who is Bill Gardner? pictured with Paige.

From his own website:

William Louis Gardner

William Louis Gardner was born in Minnesota and finished school there. He
joined the US Air Force and worked at the Pentagon in the Target Library of the world. Went on to the Pasadena Playhouse to learn television and movie making. He got a job with actress Marion Davies at her home. There He met a movie agent and started a career in Hollywood. William Louis Gardner has worked in Hollywood as the agent, personal secretary, PR advisor and manager for for Mickey Rooney, Jonathan Winters, Jill St.John, Bobby Van and director, John Huston. William Gardner is the author of two books, “Confessions of a Hollywood Agent,” and “The Games End.”

Bill Gardner’s website

According to the Jones article column 2, Paige Young and Andy Warhol discuss a role for Paige in an upcoming Andy Warhol film.

It’s not something that ever happened. I think the two were making flirty small talk. Ironically, Paige mentions Warhol and the Pop Art scene in an interview with Playboy magazine.

She said about Pop Art “it gives me a headache.” And

“I wouldn’t waste my paint on it.”

Marvene Jones also says that Mr. and Mrs. DeWain Valentine made up a foursome that evening with Paige and Bill Gardner. Valentine had an exhibit showing some of his large cast polyester resin pieces at the Pasadena Art Museum. It was being shown along with the Warhol exhibit.

PAM has been called the Norton Simon Museum since October 1975. (An interesting LA story itself.) Classic Hollywood actress and widow of producer David Selznick, Jennifer Jones married Norton Simon, a very wealthy man. He took over the museum in the mid-1970s.

DeWain Valentine, sculptor from Colorado, was a young and rising artist in the 1960s Venice Beach art scene.

Valentine is considered one of the innovators of the “Light and Space” art movement. The others include Larry Bell, Robert Irwin, Helen Pashgian, James Turrell, John McCracken, Fred Eversley, and Doug Wheeler.

Many of these artists lived or rented a studio in Venice Beach due to the cheap rent. This was continuing a practice already established by this point in time.

brief Background of the Venice Beach Art scene:

Before the

Light and Space artists emerged in the 1960s, there was the Ferus Group. Named so because they exhibited at the Ferus Gallery, which opened in 1957.

The Ferus Group includes California based artists: Ed Keinholz (original part-owner of the Gallery), Wally Berman, Billy Al Bengston, Ed Ruscha, Larry Bell, Robert Irwin, Ed Moses, Craig Kauffman, Ken Price and John Altoon.

Artists Jay DeFeo and Sonia Gechtoff from San Francisco.

Ferus Gallery included New York artists in their exhibits: Andy Warhol, Robert Rauschenberg, Roy Lichtenstein, Frank Stella.

The curators and owners of the Ferus Gallery who helped bring them to renown are Walter Hopps and Irving Blum.

Hopps had the eye for cutting edge art. Irving Blum was good at selling it.

Many of southern California artists lived in Venice Beach.

The Ferus Gallery gang interacted with Andy Warhol during his well documented stay in Los Angeles in the early 1960s. Warhol drove with actor Taylor Mead, assistant Gerard Malanga and painter Wynn Chamberlain from NYC to LA.

It was Warhol’s very first trip to LA.

The trip plan was to catch opening night for Warhol’s 2nd exhibit at Ferus. His Campbell’s soup can collection has already shown there to jeers and laughter.

The Southern California artists were allowed to live and create far away from the competitive and critical Art world.

They found freedom to creativity outside of New York City.

Ed Moses once said “No one cared what we were doing.”

Alongside this growing art scene in Venice Beach in the 1950s and early 1960s, the “Beatnik Scene” was happening.

Author Lawrence Lipton documented and helped popularize Beats and Beatniks into a popular culture trope.

The hotspots for Beats and Beatnik culture:

Venice Beach and Hermosa Beach communities in LA, North Beach in San Francisco and Greenwich Village in NYC.

Movies:

The group of Ferus artists were organizing as a Cultural force at the same time the Beatniks were becoming a pop culture force.

Over the next couple of years, Ruscha fell in with the artists orbiting the Ferus Gallery, which opened in 1957 on La Cienega Boulevard in West Hollywood. Founded by the curator Walter Hopps, his wife Shirley Hopps, and the artist Edward Kienholz, Ferus quickly became the ground zero of Los Angeles art, hosting exhibitions by Kienholz and a roster of talents that included John Altoon, Larry Bell, Billy Al Bengston, Robert Irwin, John McCracken, and Ed Moses, as well as Ruscha. Stylistically they were a diverse lot whose efforts ranged across figuration, Expressionism and Minimalist abstraction and this was no less true of Ruscha’s output, which ran the gamut from Pop Art to conceptualism. ART NEWS Nov. 2, 2023. Article about Ed Ruscha by Howard Halle.

The Ferus ‘Studs’ the new generation of artists, young abstract painters, ceramicists and assemblage makers who had been flying under the wire now were the featured artists at the Ferus Gallery. The Gallery was ripe for the adventurous artists who would set the new bar in contemporary styles. The Ferus Gallery had belief in the performance of their work and was one of the first galleries to support it.

Ferusgallery.com

END

The Light and Space or Finish Fetish art movement was born in the mid-1960s.

DeWain Valentine was a key player along with Larry Bell, Doug Wheeler and Robert Irwin, Helen Pashigan, Peter Alexander and more.

Originally from Ft. Collins, Colorado, Valentine developed a type of polyester resin material. This material allowed him to make large scale pieces like the one shown below.

Previously, the material would crack when making a piece this size: approx: 17 1/4x 17/4 x 7/8.

Valentine was a newcomer to Venice Beach compared to the others artists, he arrived with his wife Darlene and sons in 1965.

He had been hired to teach a course on plastics at the UCLA Extension program.

From my reading, he experienced a rapid success on the West Coast.

For much more detail on these art movements which established the Los Angeles art scene as one on par with New York City or even Europe, watch the documentary “The Cool School, ” available on Netflix.

Richard Sample

Told me that after he moved to a studio-home in Venice (late 1960s), he invited Paige to live with him.

Richard’s father is artist and western jewelry maker, Charlie Sample. He was able to get Richard the studio space in Venice Beach.

I asked Richard the location and he said he could not remember it, but that it was quite close to the ocean and his artist neighbors and friends were, DeWain Valentine and Larry Bell. (See chapter: Interview with Richard Sample)

Paige refers to her “new Venice art studio” and discusses the art scene there in several interviews with Playboy magazine and US newspapers in 1969 and 1970. (See chapter: Most Public Year 1969)

Richard Sample and Paige Young joined the community of Venice artists. They were “not working with the new materials,” to quote Paige in an interview. She was referring to her neighbors and friends, Valentine, Bell, Irwin, etc.

De Wain Valentine, Concave Circle Blue Green, 1968–2017. Cast polyester resin, 23 1/2 x 23 1/2 x 9 7/8 inches. © De Wain Valentine. Courtesy of the artist and Almine Rech. Photo: Melissa Castro Duarte. Brooklyn Rail.

I found the location of this Venice studio:62-68 Market St.

Research and interviews show that artist Robert Irwin lived across the street from Valentine. His name was not mentioned by Richard Sample.

At one point I asked Richard if he “knew Ed Ruscha or Robert Irwin” and some others. He did not recognize those names, he was certain about Larry Bell and DeWain Valentine.

Richard Sample’s niece Ellen Sample remembers visiting her uncle and grandfather Charles Sample at the art studio/home in Venice Beach. Charles Sample was a jewelry maker and had a retail storefront in addition to his studio.

Ellen, a child at the time, remembers hearing frequent talk about a man named “Valentine.”

Richard and Ellen both recalled being able to see the beach from the studio. 62-68 Market St., a block from the ocean, is a large structure. Many artists rented their own studios according to Ellie. This is why the address lists a range of numbers.

Richard Sample is listed with an address of 63 Market St. Venice, in a newspaper marriage announcement, 1968.

Ellen texted me a story: she thinks her Uncle Richard sublet the Venice studio to Paige at one point.

Ellen recalls “tensions” about Paige among Ellen’s aunts.

These women were the wives of Charles Sample and his sons.

Ellen said her own mother was not bothered by Paige living at the studio. However, her mother did “go with her sister-in-laws to see what was going on at the studio.” Ellen says the most tense time was when Paige’s Playboy issue was current and shortly after. (This would have been November of 1968 and 1969. In 1969 Paige was frequently traveling all over the US to promote her photos published in a”current” issue of the magazine.

Richard Sample told me he was forced to ask Paige to leave the Venice studio because she never paid him rent. (See chapter Richard Sample interview)

I have learned that Paige was not a good manager of money.

I asked Ellen if it was a possibility that Richard felt pressured to ask Paige to leave due to the tension with the women in the family.

Ellen said she thought it was possible, but just didn’t know for certain.

DeWain Valentine has spoken about his Venice studio in several art magazine interviews and the influence it had on his art.

Mrs. Darlene Valentine told me in a telephone conversation that Paige was one of many women Valentine “slept with” or “dated” during those days.

She remembered the night at the Pasadena Art Museum, but not specifically that she double dated with Paige. She does remember that Warhol superstar Ultra Violet was along with Warhol.

She does not recall meeting Bill Gardner, Paige’s date of the evening.

DeWain Valentine fondly remembers the friendships with his many fellow artists. He had a special connection with Larry Bell and Robert Irwin. This was particularly true during the 1960s and early 70s.

DeWain Valentine above states that he lived in and eventually purchased the 62 -65 Market St.

61-65 is the address listed here.

And indeed, several records with his signature and name can be seen in public building archives from LA County. They are now available online.

DeWayne Valentine spent many years living and creating art in Hawaii after the 1970s.

When he moved back to LA from Hawaii, it was to a large studio and home in Gardena.

.

From the Documentary “The Cool School.” Market St, where Valentine, Bell and Irwin, probably others, had art studios. Richard Sample and Paige Young made art and lived, briefly. Paige lived or rented the studio space for about one year. When she could not pay the rent for several months, Richard Sample “had no choice but to ask her to leave.” When he went to tell her this, Sample found her living on a houseboat in Marina del Rey.

From an 800-page + biography of Andy Warhol.