Part II
Re “From Hawaii to Sazon Latin Fusion”
Diminutive Michelle Souza, a multi-career person who describes herself as “small and gray,” came to the newspaper’s attention after sending the following press release in late October:
[img]1000|left|||no_popup[/img]
Michelle Souza and Sazon owner Claudia Quihui
Sazon Latin Fusion restaurant,12406 Washington Blvd., at Centinela, will present a reception to introduce a new series being created for emerging artists. Sazon is creating a gallery space to introduce these new artists to the community with “Low Angle Stories,” featuring the black and white photography of Culver City resident Michelle Souza and Laura Richarz. The event is an opportunity to view new artwork and to sample appetizers. The show will run through New Year’s Eve.
The anticipation was that Ms. Souza would talk about how her photographic career led her to an exhibit at a two-year-old West Culver City resident, which turned into a yarn of considerable length. A propmaster by training, she picks up the story just after she and her husband have moved from the Bay Area to Los Angeles in the early 1980s.
“I decided to stop mastering when we moved here because I was getting older and there was too much stress,” Ms. Souza said. “I call myself the propmaster who doesn’t master, like a Zen saying. I have been steadily demoting myself to, basically, just prop assistant because it is so physically arduous and also mentally crazy.
“I call myself a prop assistant with a big emphasis on buying because that is what I have always done. These days I try to take only buying jobs and prep jobs, meaning I still run around and buy things. Some props are heavy, but I never am on the set. I usually don’t even work the whole show because once I am done, they don’t need me again. In effect, I am working myself out of steady work, but I am happier.
“That leads me to other things I want to do with my life. One is, I love photography, and I started taking pictures. At Sazon, this is my fourth little exhibit.
A Photographer Picturing What Can Be
“The other thing I am trying to do is get into gift-services as a very specialized buyer for people with money who don’t have time or interest to do shopping. I just need one person to like my work who will, in turn, generate more. I am not really the big website business. I don’t even know how to do that.
“I figure that among these three little things, I can make a living.”
In the new exhibition gallery at Sazon Latin Fusion, Ms. Souza’s photos are paired with those of Laura Richarz, a chum from her early San Francisco days when she was working for the ACT, the American Conservatory Theatre. “When I joined ACT in 1974, Laura was part of the prop department,” Ms. Souza said. “We worked together for one season. Then she moved down to L.A. to get her fame and fortune, and she left me her job and her apartment. Laura is a set decorator, I am a propmaster. I actually have worked with her as her buyer. I worked on ‘True Blood’ with her.
“She does black-and-white printing as well, and I like it. When the opportunity at Sazon came along, I said, ‘Hey, come and join me.’”
The engagement seems to have come about by happenstance.
“About three months ago, Jim, my husband, who speaks Spanish and loves Latin food as much as I do, go to Sazon for dinner,” says Ms. Souza, who also has an exhibit at Trader Joe’s, Downtown, where she says there is a year-long waiting list. “As soon as I walked in the back door of the restaurant and saw those pumpkin-colored walls, I said ‘This would be a really cool place to show my photos.’ The color just offsets black-and-white. I do found-wood frames.”
Ms. Souza’s interviewer interrupted her. Found-wood?
“I find wood for frames,” she says, adding that she doesn’t patronize major commercial outlets “and buy all the same frames. There are two schools of thought, that frames detract from the photograph. I believe, at least right now, that a frame is part of the story, and my photos are about the story. I really want to convey a story, and a frame helps sometimes.
“So we met Claudia Quihui, the owner of Sazon, and I said to her the first time we talked, I said ‘I’ve got photos for you.’ We came to be friends, and it evolved from just showing my photos to showing Laura’s as well because I thought it would be fun to do it with somebody. Maybe we could get together a little show, and maybe Claudia could get some business.
“Claudia said she had seen other small restaurants and coffee shops where they had rotating art on their walls. Laura and I have a total of almost two dozen black-and-white photos up that will come down on New Year’s Eve, and a new exhibit will go upp the next day.”
Ms. Souza calls her display “Low-Angled Stories” because, you may remember she was introduced at the top of this story as diminutive.
She undoubtedly has appeal. On Opening Night, she sold five photos.
