AVAILABLE FROM RARE BIRD:
A collection of 25 original essays inspired by Joan Didion and the West.
AVAILABLE FROM ANGEL CITY PRESS:
An illustrated history of this historic Los Angeles stained glass studio.
Los Angeles-based writer and editor Steffie Nelson explores the places where art, style, culture and history intersect. She has been published in The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Alta Journal, Los Angeles Review of Books, and many others. Her Red Canary Magazine profile of the artist Lauren Bon won the 2022 Feature Reporting award from the Society of Professional Journalists. She is the editor of the essay collection Slouching Towards Los Angeles: Living and Writing by Joan Didion’s Light, and coauthor of Judson: Innovation in Stained Glass.
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HIGHLIGHTS
The Secret Growing: On the New Spiritual Art Canon
IN OCTOBER 2022, I received an invitation to celebrate the Scorpio new moon eclipse with a group of creative women. The invitation was illustrated with a 1915 painting by the Swedish artist and mystic Hilma af Klint, The Dove, No. 14—a rainbow sphere with a white... MoreThe Casita on Calle Colima: Reflections on a shape-shifting Mexico City
“Hermosa casita en la Colonia Roma,” read the listing that popped up on Airbnb when I was searching for a rental in Mexico City in the spring of 2022. The main image showed an elegant, periwinkle-blue row house with white trim, beside an identical house... MoreThe Art of Reparation: Lauren Bon Imagines the L.A. River After Us
Inside the small, ground-floor gallery, the air is moist and fragrant with dirt and hanging bundles of sagebrush, amaranth, yerba mansa and ephedra. One wall is lined with topographic maps; against another, teardrop-shaped beakers steadily drip water solutions into contaminated soil, filtering out lead, arsenic... More
RECENT WORK
Heads Up: A Q&A with the Mexican American Milliner Gladys Tamez
When Lady Gaga appeared on the cover of her 2016 album, Joanne, unadorned except for a gently tapered pink felt hat, the Mexican American designer Gladys Tamez officially stepped center... More
The Floating Sound Collective Tunes In, Outside
It feels a little bit like joining a secret society — that is, if secret societies were open to everyone. “Text a cloud emoji to this number,” instructs the Instagram... More
Brother Nature: Obi Kauffman and his California Field Atlas Series
“This is a love story.” So begins Obi Kaufmann’s The California Field Atlas (Heyday), an illustrated guide to the natural world of California that sat atop the San Francisco... More
Like A Rainbow: Ariana Papademetropoulos and the Emerald Tablet
Ariana Papademetropoulos. “Origins” (2021). Oil on canvas. 84” x 120”. Courtesy of Ariana Papademetropoulos and Jeffrey Deitch Los Angeles. The artist Ariana Papademetropoulos moves effortlessly between dimensions. With her recent... More
Star 80: Nick Taggart’s LA Stories Encapsulates an Era and a City’s Electric Energy
When the British-born artist Nick Taggart came to Los Angeles in 1977, he planned to stay for three months. Four-plus decades later, he is still here, living on the same... More
Joan Didion Explores the ‘Shimmer’ in a New Collection
“You know, sometimes I think I can’t think at all unless I’m behind my typewriter,” Joan Didion told an editor for Ms. magazine during an interview at the author’s Malibu... More
A New ‘Library of Esoterica’ Brings the Occult to Your Coffee Table
Not so long ago, the discovery of esoteric knowledge was a rite unto itself, requiring research and travel, as many dead ends as discoveries. Today, these quests are as simple... More
The California Dream of Elysian Landscapes
For Judy Kameon, the most important role a garden can fulfill is to create community, so there is a poetic synergy in the fact that her career as a garden... More
Corita Kent: Pop Artist, Public Servant, Rebel Nun
“To be fully alive is to work for the common good.” —Corita Kent The artist best known as Sister Corita was born Frances Elizabeth Kent in 1918. She grew up... More
Sara Ruffin Costello’s Southern Charms
Seven years ago, Sara Ruffin Costello and her family did what so many New Yorkers dream of but never dare—they left behind the urban rat race for a slower, sweeter... More