SITE LA

The After Life at Quiksilver’s siteLA project

At first it seems like a little Real World meets Project Runway—six creative women, sharing a workplace, spending many hours a week together, stressing to meet her respective goal du jour. But there’s a difference: With their newest endeavor, which celebrates its latest collection for women, Quiksilver selected these ladies to be “Visionaries in Residence” and will offer them the resources they need to pursue their passions and personal projects for a year and—over the course of that year—no one will storm out crying, no one will talk trash about the other girls in an on-camera confessional room, and everyone’s a winner. The brightly lit 1,800-square-foot space in Silver Lake, Los Angeles, that’s been designated siteLA, functions as a venue for these “Visionaries,” who work on and showcase their talents as artists, activists, entrepreneurs, and designers.

Sarah Anderson, 25, Los Angeles, CA
ARTIST
WHAT: Anderson operates a collaborative drawing project called the Sumi Ink Club (to date, it’s been met with hype and success, showing in this year’s NYC Whitney Biennial). The group has artists of all experience levels work together on whimsical projects of their choosing. Anderson also runs a dance troupe called “People” and a publishing house know as “Glaciers of Nice”; this busy girl is also half of the performance/music/sound/video/interactive group, Lucky Dragons.
WHY: In an open-invitation forum, Sumi meets once a week to doodle, scrawl, and create layered pictorials. The ultra-cool Anderson exclaims: “Sumi Tuesdays! The Sumi Ink Club started in 2005 and had met in my house until this point, so this is a cool opportunity to make it wider and broader.”
WHEN: Anderson is planning a multi-city drawing event in San Francisco, New York, LA, and Paris. The resulting collaborations will be featured in a published book.
WAVES: She admits that she’s not a surfer nor native to California, but we sure would like to keep her here.

Khrystune Zurian, 26, Eagle Rock, CA
CAR DESIGNER
WHAT: As a Transportation Design major at the Center College of Design, Zurian is usually given 14 weeks to come up with a project from initial concept and sketching, to a finished model. The luxury of time at siteLA enables Zurian to do the market research for the niche LA women who—she thinks—would prefer spending their typical two-hour commute more efficiently, by exercising in their cars.
WHY: While more than 80% of car buyers are women, less than 1% are a designer. “Usually a car studio is really secret, and I want to inspire women to be interested in the field and career of car design,” Zurian says.
WHEN: “I want to create a different way of thinking about your car. This is a regional car specifically for LA, and I’m bringing the fitness environment to an LA woman and her needs,” she asserts. She hopes to make a 1:1 model of the interior of her ideal car, and a quarter scale of the exterior during her stay.
WAVES: Zurian is a self-described, “total surfer-snowboard-skater girl with two boards of each in my closet.”

Beth Jones, 27, Santa Ana, CA
FASHION BLOGGER SLASH SHOPKEEPER
WHAT: Following some time in sales, the self-proclaimed “creative person bottled in a cubicle,” Jones wanted to try her hands in the fashion world, so she re-designed vintage wares to sell them in a boutique, and then re-purposed that concept into a fashion blog (thevintagesociety.blogspot.com).
WHY: “It’s opened a ton of doors. I went to NY Fashion Week and got to blog about my experience.” With the help of dedicated followers, Jones finds herself creating a highly trafficked online zine.
WHEN: Her goal is to spend this next year exploring her options: “I want to start styling, eventually freelance fashion writing, and grow my blog into an online fashion community, kind of like an e-zine or like a Style.com—but with the same ideals as TheVintageSociety.”
WAVES: A Hilton Head Island native, Jones contends that she understood Quik’s new twist for their Fall collection: “It’s the girl that has moved away from Huntington and has gone to LA or New York. She travels, she’s independent: I’m that girl.”

Dorothy Le, 23, Los Angeles, CA
BICYCLE PLANNER
WHAT: As an Environmental Science major at UCLA, Le admits that, “Before I started cycling, I never knew the joy of it.” Declining a car from her parents, she still doesn’t own one.
WHEN: According to her, most of the community rides in LA at night are made up primarily of men—who are really fast. Thinking about herself when she was just getting started, and her girlfriends who are interested but too intimidated to jump into the bike culture, she figured that there should be a place for the average woman. She’ll hold workshops at siteLA, covering subjects like the proper way to get your bike on the bus, what to wear when you’re cycling in the city, and traffic skills. Ideally, she’ll hold the workshops in conjunction with rides, seek out experienced female bikers to employ a mentor system, and plan monthly socials there. “My biggest challenge will be trying to reach people outside the cycling community.”
WHY: “Los Angeles is such a car culture,” Dorothy explains. “I want to show people that there’s a way to live without a car and still be ‘normal.’”
WAVES: Of course she surfs, how could she not, having grown up in Manhattan Beach, CA. “I have a deep connection to the ocean,” she says. “I can’t imagine my life without it.”

Pilar Diaz, 30, Los Angeles, CA
MUSICIAN
WHAT: After 7 years in the LA-based band Los Abandoned, Diaz chose to go solo as a songwriter, and thought siteLA’s residency would give her the support needed to go on her own.
WHY: “This pushes me to make a business proposal and make it a reality rather than a dream.”
WHEN: By year’s end, Diaz hopes to have a ten-song demo and an act to take on the road. She’ll also use siteLA as a performance area to test the crowd. Additionally, she wants to “integrate the group’s talents with what we do individually.”
WAVES: Coming to LA via Chile, Diaz says that nature inspires her. Plus, she admits laughingly, “I really like boys on skateboards! Especially older boys, like, oh shoot, you’re 30 and can still skate!”

Jesse Rodato, 27, Los Angeles, CA
ENVIRONMENTAL DESIGNER
WHAT: Doubling her duties, Rodato is an architecture student at Otis College of Art and Design getting her bachelors degree, while simultaneously working on Guerilla Skateparks, a project that will bring pop-up skate parks to under-green areas.
WHY: Statistics show that the proportion between small amounts of green space correlates directly with high crime rates and poverty. “I want to start with South Central: There are four skate parks in the vicinity but it’s a heavy crime and gang territory area, and at night there isn’t a safe space.”
WHEN: Rodato’s first event will be held mid-May. As she says, “If you have a moveable area and try to keep it going through word of mouth, hopefully the ‘park’ will remain safe and be a temporary moving form of architecture.” Meanwhile, the local precincts might donate security—they’re on board and want to help. “Most of the places have been really helpful and willing,” she says.
WAVES: “I skated till I was 21, but the older you get the harder you fall. I’ve always been interested in the skate community—I was a tomboy, and now I’m into the urban community. But I have to live near the beach,” the California native admits.

For more info, visit the SiteLA website.

By Christina Scannapiego
Photos: Brian Ziff