Southwest LA is a colorful place. Whether it’s a graffiti’ed wall or a painted storefront mural, it seems as if everyone in the neighborhood is an amateur artist. All of that art adds something to the character of our neighborhood, making it unique and distinct. Some of this art is quite beautiful in technique and creativity. Some of it is confusing and makes you scratch your head. Still some of it reflects the unfortunate pessimism of how many Southwest LA residents view their lives.

The thing about art, in the broader sense, is that it’s so subjective. What makes for a great song, or moving painting, a beautiful dance, or a life-changing film? Everyone has a differing opinions, based much on their own taste, experience, and ability to engage with the art. However, the main reason we put ourselves out there, in front of others with our art, is to express something inside of us or around us that has not yet been sufficiently expressed or communicated. So, I would venture to say that it is nearly impossible to say what great art is, but much easier to describe what great art does, to us, around us, for us.

I am not, by conventional definitions, an artist. I don’t know how to express beauty, pain, joy, frustrations through an attractive medium. Though, I have been and often am, moved by art. I have a great appreciation artists that are able to elicit emotion from the viewer.

At With Love Community Market and Cafe, we want to support the local art that can elicit such emotions. This means opening up the cafe space for live music performances. It means putting up pieces by local artists around the store. And it means promoting the work of local artists in other ways so that they can continue representing Southwest LA. In a larger sense, our business itself seeks to be a form of art, an act of creativity resulting in a beautiful, emotive entity through which people can experience love.  We also want the Market and Cafe to be a force that channels each artist’s creativity away from glorifying man and man’s creations toward glorifying God.