 Welcome to Web Chat Wednesdays. I'm Artie and I'm here with Chris. Hello everyone, how you doing? Today we're interviewing Jeremy Schott, owner of the Dark Arts Emporium in Long Beach, California. What is the Dark Arts Emporium? The Dark Art Emporium is a art gallery slash oddity shop in downtown Long Beach. And we showcase lowbrow art, dark art, human only place in Long Beach you can buy a human skull, human remains, weird books, all kinds of cool stuff. That's awesome. And how did the original concept for the Dark Arts Emporium come about? Well, I was a cameraman for heavy metal bands and pro wrestling and that sort of thing, corporate videos and all that stuff. And about five years ago, I got tired of living on the road. It was a lot of fun and you're like 20s and then as you get older, it's not so fun anymore. So while we were on the road, I would always look at like, well, where's the weird museum, the oddity shop, like, what can I go see the roadside attractions that sort of thing. And then the lead singer of the band I was with Eddie from Suicide Silence, he was like, dude, you just like into art in general, like anything, whether it's music, you know, books, paintings, whatever it is, you're just into it. So that kind of gave me the idea of like, oh, well, I should just do this myself. And then just ran with it. That's awesome. Well, so was there a particular moment or experience like that kind of, I know you said just the whole traveling down the road and like seeing other places like is there a specific place that you maybe want to shout out. Oh man, I love, I love, I love all kinds of all the places. You know, like Sweden and Norway and Finland, all the Scandinavian countries were awesome. You know, Germany is a great, great country. Australia was a lot of fun Thailand, all the Southeast Asia was really cool. I mean, I've been around the world twice. So it's really cool. Did any of those places have like a specific oddity shop that kind of like maybe inspired you. In New York, there was a place called Obscura. You might remember it there was they had made a TV show about them on Discovery Channel I think called, I think it was called Obscura, or something like that or oddities or something like that. So that place was really cool. But outside of that like, you know, there's like the catacombs and all throughout Europe, you can go down there and look at dead, dead monks and that was really cool. I mean, I mean what sparked me to really just do this is I was doing a corporate gig for a laundry coin operated laundry conference in Ohio. You know, I'm sitting in this big conference hall and guys are talking about like laundry machines and I'm sitting with my like, you know, $20,000 camera and a suit getting paid a lot of money but it was soulless. I wanted to do something that actually mattered with the world. And so that was the idea of the of a gallery, like give people a voice that I, I like. And hopefully people other other people like it too. That's awesome. Yeah, thanks. Thanks for that. That's some great insight Jeremy. So over time Dark Arts Emporium, you know, I've seen a few different, you know, incarnations and spaces. Can you take us through the history of the space and how it has evolved, you know, from where it used to be and where it is now. Sure. So the first time I opened, I guess it was like four and a half years ago or so. We were on Elm Street or Elm Avenue and third, and it was a tiny little 600 square foot boutique with concrete walls I had to drill every time I needed to hang an art piece. And it was tiny. And I was there for six months and then there was a place on the corner that was supposed to be a tattoo parlor and they couldn't get their permits. So I mentioned to the landlady that, you know, if that ever opened up when my lease was over, I'd like to move there. And then six months down the road after I just built out the whole gallery she's like hey you want to do it now. So double the rent, double the space and it was a big risk. And so I built that out again, and then move two doors down. And then I think we were there for two and a half or three years. And then we started to grow we became kind of a hub for the Long Beach Art Walk. And we were right across the street from the Long Beach Art Museums annex. And that worked out really well. Because everybody that was into art at the time was kind of coming in that space. And we were showing like really cool art shows. The take it back is that I met my partner here Jeremy Cross the other Jeremy at the old space and he was curating at other galleries. And he was a local artist so he came in and helped me and kind of help taught me how to hang an art show really I had no clue what I was doing. Before this, I'd worked like a toy store when I was in high school I knew nothing about retail. I studied film, I studied film like I don't know anything about any of this. So he really helped me out and helped the gallery grow a lot. And so from that, and now we're in behind the fourth horseman so two years ago. I met Martin and Ryan my business partners at the fourth horseman, and they were at Phantom carriage brewery in, I think it's Carson. And so I became buddies with them and they started sponsoring art shows, and then they came to me with the idea of the fourth horseman, which I thought was a really fun cool idea. So we did that. And then, when the space behind the fourth horseman opened up the landlord approached me and asked me if I was interested in it. And so we made basically a speakeasy art gallery behind the pizza place, which has been open to the public, officially, one day. So, not too many people have been back here unless you've made an appointment to come see it. Yeah, I've been to the first. Well, not the first one I've been I've been to the dark arts important when it was on Elm Street, but I haven't got to check out the new one obviously because it just opened but I'm really eager to check it out and go get a slice of pizza from the fourth horseman. Yeah. Well, it was, I mean, the, we did our one opening here, March 15 the last year with May more from Japan. And then the very next day was the lockdown so we were here for one day and not having street access and all that stuff I was kind of worried that this wouldn't work. But we survived COVID so I think once we can start getting people back into the pizza place again and start having art openings again. It'll start getting a little bit more normal, I guess. I don't know. We'll see. We'll see if it works. We still never know. It's an art gallery. Since you since you've partnered with the fourth horseman, do you have a favorite type of pizza? I'm pretty simple. I'm just a pepperoni and jalapeno dude. That's my favorite pizza. That's my go to maybe throw mushrooms on to be fancy. But lately we've been having the spicy vegan, what is it this spicy vegan margarita and adding pepperonis to it and that thing is awesome. So that's kind of been my new favorite right now. I'm going to bring it back to the to the Emporium. What energy, what energy or feeling do you want people to experience when they enter the dark arts Emporium? I want people to feel like when you walk in here, like as an artist I want you to feel safe and be able to express yourself in any way you want. I want people to be welcoming and welcomed here. I know what we show and what we do isn't exactly for everyone, but I also have a feeling that if you spend enough time in here and look at the walls, you're going to find something that you like. Maybe not you want to put in your home, but something that you know you're going to be like wow that's really cool and never expected to walk into this place and find something that interests me. I guess that's my goal is to, you know, make dark art and lowbrow art more mainstream. I know lowbrow kind of had its heyday but I think dark art is kind of up and coming right now, and it's only going to get bigger and better. And people will start accepting it as more as a mainstream media as opposed to like comic book stuff and band covers and stuff like that. So you have a process for setting up an art show and I said you learned a lot from your partner, your other friend Jeremy, but do you have your own process for just like setting up an art show like curating all the pieces because sometimes you have multiple artists and then sometimes I imagine you maybe have just like solo shows perhaps. Yeah, so when it comes to like an artist like we do accept submissions but a lot of the art I seek out myself and so does cross. And then like with the group shows like it's usually just kind of like an idea like this month is called feral. And it was just, you know, I thought it was a cool title for an art show. And then, you know, you look up the definition of feral and then what that means and then you send the prompt to the artists and say, I don't like to tell people what to paint. But you kind of give them like a, you know, a, you know, just a little prompt to make them think about, Well, what does the word feral mean to me and then, you know, they go from there. So that's kind of how we do the group shows is usually just kind of like a theme or an idea. And then as, and then the solo shows like I tell the artists that these are their walls for that month so it's pretty much whatever they want to do. Granted I'll give, you know, if they ask for advice or, you know, comments or anything I will but for the most part this this space is theirs for a month. Yeah, the first time I ever went to the dark arts and for him was during an art walk and I was like really amazed because maybe a few years before that I had seen. I'd heard about like, I think it's Greg Allman. He released an album called Southern Blood, and the album cover was painted in blood, and it has this like really like orangey rusty tint to the album cover. I think he might have even used his own blood for it and then and then when I went in there I think I think the artist it was like a solo show for the artists who did the album cover for Southern Blood. Yeah, that was Vincent Castigula. He was a big get like when I opened this place I was a big fan of his work and never thought that he would ever give me any attention like I mean his first that Vincent's first solo show was at the Eager Museum in Switzerland. When he was I think 19 years old. Eager was a mentor to him. He's a badass. Yeah, HR Eager. That's all. That was his mentor that's so freaking amazing. Yeah, Vincent was buddies with him. And so, when we approached him, I was talking we were actually Crofts and I were hanging in art show and I just mentioned like man I'd love to get Castigula in here and he was like I know him. I don't have a phone number. And so they'd met years ago in the past and he asked him if you want to do a solo show and he said yes. And that Greg Alman piece you're talking about was painted in Greg and his children's blood. It's owned by his daughter, Brooklyn, who was at the show was really cool to meet her. The painting showed up in a crate. I remember opening it and like, oh my god like I'm holding holding Greg Alman like his DNA is right here. It's pretty powerful stuff. Yeah, Vincent only paints in human blood. He uses it like a watercolor. And he's fantastic. That's awesome. You know, it was really cool as I become really good friends with him, like we talked like once a month. Yeah, that's such a great story. Yeah, thanks for sharing that I did not know that that's a that's a that's a pretty amazing unexpected connection to especially just because you're doing something that you're passionate about. And these unexpected connections just formulate and happen just because you're doing what you you know what you what you love or what you care about, or you know just doing something you're really into. Aside from like some of those connections. What is your favorite thing about or one of the favorite things that you about what you do. Actually, the other day I sold a painting to a student. And it was his very first original piece he'd ever bought. And when that happens, that's really exciting to me when I'm turning somebody on to something new it was events lock, which he came in because he was a fan events locked in this comic books and the cannibal corpse covers and stuff like that. And he wanted one of the walls that was cheaper. And I told I just had a dot on it it was already sold and I was like but you can have this one. It's like oh but it's more expensive so I gave him a discount and then he told me it was his first original and felt so good like he was really excited about it and you know, with this place and this type of art gallery people aren't buying it because of resale value or you know I'm it's an investment piece and stuff like that, like, people buy this stuff because it speaks to them and they love it. And that's, that's the most rewarding part of it is, you know, is that people are buying these things because they want to look at it every day. The same way I got into art and the same way, you know I got into collecting art. I mean I was a collector before this place. So, do you remember your first piece of original art. It might have been a big tasty, or Matthew live, live in. I used to go to hyena gallery actually bill is kind of a mentor to me with the gallery hyena gallery in Burbank. I buy I used to buy a lot of artwork from him. And so when I opened this place, you know I told him what I was doing is like, you don't want to do this. But I did it anyways, and so like is stupid things like asking how do I write an artist contract. He kind of held my hand with that. And so it was definitely an art piece from Bill. I can't remember it was either. I think it was the big tasty there's a is actually a paint it's a drawing of this woman with a glass of wine in her hand looking at like a drawing of boobs and a drawing of a penis and the giant and it's just a little blob that comes out of her head man this art shit sir is weird. I think it's that one. I might be my first one. That's awesome. How did you how did you make your way to Long Beach you said you're from Houston right. So how did you end up in Long Beach did you move other places before you landed here or did you come straight to Long Beach. I grew up in Houston, and then when I, and then I moved to Austin, Texas, and was enrolled at UT for film, but I never went. It's called I love video is like an underground video store, and we're open till 3am. So working till 3am getting drunk and then showing up to class at 8am just didn't work out. So, dropped out of there and then I was going to move to the Cayman Islands with a friend to become a bartender, or go to Chapman film school, and my girlfriend at the time wrote an entrance essay for Chapman. And unfortunately I got in and didn't get to go to the Bahamas or the Cayman Islands, which actually worked out because then my buddy he got wiped out by hurricane now he's living in Houston. So, definitely like, you know, I just kind of like show up places and fall into things. So I went to Chapman film school and then I had a friend that grew up in Long Beach and he, I can never live in Hollywood. I can't do LA it's too much. And so I visited Long Beach and kind of fell in love with it. And you can come here and not listen to some guy pitch a script behind you at a coffee shop and the real people live here. So I'd make the drive anytime I needed to go to Hollywood for work. But I love it here. Yeah, I live. My first apartment actually a block from where we are the horseman 1617 years ago. And why do you think Long Beach is a good place for the Emporium. Um, I don't know if it is actually like Long Beach Long Beach is weird. Long Beach is cool. Like there's some Long Beach actually kind of reminds me a bit of like Austin because it's a big city, but it's very small to like everybody kind of knows each other. But there's so many people here I don't know how that's possible but everybody kind of runs in these worlds where everybody kind of knows each other. And I was very surprised that the the dark art was so welcoming here, because I was, you know, when we first opened I was putting signs outside that said Thomas can skate sucks by real art. I didn't expect a backlash but people came in and they they're like oh this is really cool. But anyways, so yeah, I don't know Long Beach, I lived here and I wasn't going to do it anywhere else if I was going to do it pretty much is what it comes down to. If it didn't work within a year I was going to say screw it and figure something else out. Yeah, that's cool that you have such like a durable and adventurous personality. I feel like a lot of people kind of crumble when it comes to like adversity you know it's hard. Reality is hard and but it's cool that you turned it into, you know, the fact that you started the dark arts employment with no knowledge of throwing an art show and whatnot like it's really inspirational. And kind of what we want to do is just like inspire the people who watch this to take on, you know, go through their own journey and adventure. Yeah, I mean, when I was at Chapman film school I had a directing teacher that probably gave me the best like I went to college off and on for like seven years. She gave me the best advice and as she said you're scared to fail, don't be scared to fail. And then you know, like that's, that was a big thing that stuck with me is that you're going to fall on your face over and over and over again, but eventually something's going to work that's going to make sense to you or other people so anytime somebody asked me about starting a business or doing anything really is like, do it like you only get one, one time around this world like, you know, give it a shot. Definitely. Awesome. Seems like you, you speak highly of the city of Long Beach and you recognize that there's like some weirdness to it, and little something for everyone. What are some of your favorite spots around Long Beach. I love the prospector. I think the prospector is a fine establishment that needs to be around here forever and ever and ever. Alex's bar is great and I become good buddies with Alex throughout the years and that place is awesome and I hope it keeps going forever and ever and ever like having that in our backyard with that quality of music and and shows and stuff is is amazing. I don't want to leave Long Beach if I don't have to to go see a concert. I'm trying to think of other places that I really like I take walks to the Queen Mary all the time. A couple other, you know, hops and vines my old neighbors, that place is fantastic great beer selection and good people. So, yeah, I mean, I guess that's, I don't know, I like, I like all the places old Dubliners awesome and, you know, old Dubliners great and ordinaries great to and Lola's has great food and Super Max and Cinco de Mayo right here as some of the best Mexican food in Long Beach to then nobody ever goes there. I hope they keep going forever too. Yeah. Cool. Thank you so much. Yeah. So we try to put together like a list of book recommendations from all of our guests. So do you have any books, or even any like media films or art that you'd want to recommend to our patrons. Yeah, I had to, I had to write them down because I forget titles so when people ask me like what books to read. But anything by Bukowski. I love all of his books and poetry. And then Jerry stall is a really good writer that I really like like plain clothes naked and perva love story are awesome. And then I really into John Ronson books. He did a book called them adventures with extremists that is fantastic. I don't, I don't believe in conspiracy theories but I really like to read about them and like, they really interest me. So that one's really fun. And then Doug Stan hope, the comedian one of my favorite comedians wrote a book called digging up mother about him helping his mother die. Which is a beautiful book and extremely funny. And then back to trauma, make your own damn movie by Lloyd Kaufman is extremely inspiring. Is that like a documentary I haven't heard of that one. It's a book slash DVD set. And he wrote a book with, I can't remember the guy's name but the guy that does garden is a galaxy and like the Marvel movies now started a trauma. So there's another book called all everything I learned about filmmaking I learned from toxic Avenger, and they co wrote that. And then Lloyd has this other, it's like, here's how you do things. And then what else did I write down was one more. Oh, I'm not a cop by Richard Belzer. He's an actor, and he always gets, you know, he plays cops in all the movies so people think he's a real cop. And the book is really funny because it's like semi autobiographical but, you know, nonfiction at the same time and fictional at the same time and it's really weird and really into that and then my desk. I must have taken it home. I always keep a I have a copy about how to run an art gallery. I don't even know who's by or anything but I bought that day one when I opened this place. So every time you get into a situation you just open up your desk and just go to find the relevant. It's not relevant at all because it's for like blue chip galleries but every now and then and it said stick to what you want to do and that's what I've been doing. As movies go like Fitzgerald does one of my favorite book movies and by Ferner Herzog. I mean, he pulled a opera boat over a mountain in real life for that movie. He's awesome. And then, you know, that of the hunter is a great one too. Well, we will gather that list and hope see what's in our collection and make it as easy as possible for patrons to check those books out. Yeah, hopefully you have them. I'm sure we have a good portion of the books. But we'll see. Yeah, I used to I used to own that book about how to run an art gallery. I picked it up at a used bookstore. And as I was throwing thumbing through it, I flipped to the back. It was a hardbound copy. And I flipped to the back. And there was an old $2 bill just tucked away inside the protective sleeve in the back. And I always just left it in there because I felt like it was a lucky $2 bill. But yeah, that was a great read. I remember just, you know, nerding out on how galleries are run. Because I enjoy art galleries and I always just wondered, well, what, like what goes into, you know, making the gallery happen. I think I picked it up for like a dollar or $2 just like a great deal. But definitely a wealth of knowledge in that book. Yeah, it was definitely it was definitely helpful. Like, you know, and coming up with a name and, you know, learning that you need to stick to what you want to do, you know, no show, you know, street art and graffiti stuff. And then the next day show dark art, like stick with what you know, and what you're passionate about as opposed to what'll sell. It was pretty much the main thing I took from that. Yeah, yeah. So as you know, we were a department in the in the public library system. And so we asked all of our guests, what is one of the most memorable experiences you've had in a library, any type of library. Whether it's college or public. See, um, I'm, I'm bad, I don't go to the library often. Even in college, like I, you know, I'd go when I had to but it wasn't too memorable is just writing a paper and needing to find things. Library libraries also count. There's a few of those in LA. Yeah. I mean, I think the Long Beach library that just, they just finished is gorgeous. Like I've probably been in that I've been in there way more times in the old library. I don't think I ever darkened the doors of the old library. The new library is gorgeous like I kind of, I want to go spend more time there but damn COVID. I can't do it right now. I think I know the Long Beach Long Beach library will definitely, if I don't have any memories yet, but I probably will soon. Yeah, thank you for giving us all of your time. We appreciate it so much and working people find out more about the dark arts Emporium. Just go to dark art Emporium calm. Everything's there. Our Instagram, our Facebook, we update that pretty regularly. And if you're in the in the town right now we're doing appointments I'm thinking probably next month we'll stop doing appointments on Fridays and Saturdays and I'll just sit here and you can come see me. But right now we're just doing appointments just because the world's weird. That will change soon and we can actually have a real art opening in June or May I have the creep and bunny show. It's a brother sister artists that are awesome lowbrow fun stuff. And then in June was our biggest art show that we do every year called tiny tears and this will be tiny tears for a new hope. There's over 100 artists and probably 300 pieces of art and everything's 10 inches or smaller including the frame. So there's a ton of art on these walls that month and I'm hoping by June we can have a real opening and people can come in here, because that show you have to see in person because it's fun and tiny. Yeah, that's I remember going to that show at the other location. It's a fun one. It's a pull it off the wall and take it home right then no dots screw that. All right, well thanks again for giving us your time. And that concludes this episode of web chat Wednesdays.