Crafted at Port of Los Angeles..

so I've been wanted to go try out the Crafted warehouse in POLA since I read an article about it in the Sunset Magazine a while back, today was the day.

Crafted

Although the name mentions Los Angeles, Crafted is located in the City of San Pedro.  I really enjoyed the drive out to San Pedro, it is fun to have some adult conversation in the front seat.  I remember the days when the kids couldn't eavesdrop, but those days are long gone. Spelling out words out has also passed, now we have to talk in coded double entendre.  We could be that couple in 'Americans' except for, well, almost everything in that show now that I think about it.

Anyhoo, San Pedro is an interesting place.  It isn't that easy to get to, but I love driving over the bridges (a steel truss bridge and a steel suspension bridge, no I don't know bridges, I asked Nadim :).  Once there, I'm reminded that a working port is really pretty ugly but fascinating.  The cargo ships are HUGE, the cranes bigger and the grime factor is surprising considering all the real estate is water front.  This isn't the OC.

So we cruised down Harbor Blvd past Ports Of Call and the Maritime Museum, until we hit Crafted.  The old warehouse looks pretty good with its new paint and they had an interesting garden with "art" in it.

garden filled with native plants

jeep as a garden art installation

Once inside it was a bit of a let down.  I would say that 60% of the booths are vacant.  The shops that were there were cute, but a bit expensive with lots of jewelry options and not much else.  Not much in the way of food either.

lots of empty store fronts

quilts!  finally something other than jewelry.

here are some people

There was a really cool industrial art fan, that Nadim pointed out.  It's hard to appreciate the scale in the picture, but it was really big.

ceiling fan

The kids found this art piece - a baby sculpture made out of metal mesh and filled with toys the artist found at the dump.  I found this to be both interesting and disturbing.

kids picking their favorite toys

close up of the discarded toys

I think this place has great potential, but it has a long, long way to go.  On the way home in the car I did some research and vendors there pay $500 a month rent.  I don't see how they sell enough product to make any kind of profit.

Crafted was summed up nicely by Son 1 "Mom, this place has lots of cool stuff, but it is really expensive!"  Indeed.