On March 17th, the Venice Art Crawl (VAC) celebrated the contribution to the arts and societal impact of its previously announced 2022 Legendary Women Artists of Venice Awards honorees: Legendary fine artist and designer Isabelle Lago; Emerging Artist film director Megan Raney Aarons; and Rising Star Award recipient, nine year-old artist Misty Srichandr.

The benefit—sponsored by Hotel Erwin, GRAiNEY Pictures, and The Equity | Impact Center—saw previous awardees in attendance, such as Joelle Dumas (2018), Meryl Lebowitz (2018), Jules Muck (2018, who had a pop-up in the entry of Hotel Erwin), MB Boissonault (2020), and Robin Murez (2020), alongside generations of local supporters. Current Venice Art Crawl board members and original founders Edizen Stowell, Daniel Samakow, and Mike Newhouse awarded current President, Sunny Bak, with a special trophy acknowledging a Legendary Lead in the Arts and Community. Throughout the evening, artist Leah Knauer completed live painting, the Haikuists drafted on-demand poems, SCALE Fellowship awardee Sierra Sellers performed, and DJ Beth spun; both a silent auction and an Instagram auction also took place, which included a series of Andy Warhol images from various Venice artists.

Isabelle Lago is a renowned painter, muralist and animation designer based in Los Angeles. A fine art graduate from USC, Isabelle found her groove in the grassroots art crawl scene and exhibitions of Venice Beach, which is where her iconic Isabelle Gorilla character first emerged in 2011. Today, her murals can be found on city streets, at tech start-ups, and private homes in Los Angeles and beyond, and her paintings and prints have been purchased by thousands of collectors around the world. Isabelle is also a founding partner of Nomad Blvd., an NFT project based on her work that sold out in January 2022.

Accomplished writer/director/producer Megan Raney Aarons mashes true-life realism with a dark and magical whimsy, with plot twisting her narrative trademark. Co-founder of Venice based production company, GRAiNEY PICTURES with brother Colin K Gray, their seventh feature documentary UNZIPPED is now at festivals. On the heels of a vast library of original fare and a slew of awards, Megan continues to earn her stripes. Megan was selected for The Handmaid’s Tale Season 4 director mentor program. Raney wrote the scripted psychological thriller CAGES with Colin, and Guatemala’s Izabel Acevedo. Directed by Megan, the film is set in Guatemala and Texas, and is now casting. Megan is also a creator attached to direct a revisionist historical fiction series, and is currently writing her second feature, JANNERS, set in 1990’s Plymouth (UK), along with a half-hour scripted comedy series.

Legendary Women Artists of Venice Rising Star Misty Shichandr is a two-time “My Venice Holiday Poster” contest winner and attends Coeur d’Alene Elementary school. The future is female and this award is for her.

These awards were the second all-in-person Venice Art Crawl event since the pandemic began, and will be followed by a mixer on April 21st, from 6:00-9:00PM PDT. The mixer will be held at artist Patrizia Martiradonna’s gallery at 4059 Lincoln Blvd, Venice, CA 90291. Admission is $35, although those who attended the Legendary Women Artists of Venice Awards will receive admission for only $10. The first official crawl of the 2022 season will be announced shortly.

About the Legendary Women Artists of Venice Awards

The Legendary Women Artists of Venice Awards were first presented in 2018, founded by Sunny Bak and Lauren Doyle in honor of Women’s History Month, at the Hotel Erwin by Councilmember Mike Bonin and George Francisco, President of the Venice Chamber of Commerce. The awards have been presented in 2018 and 2020 to acknowledge Venice’s rich history with the arts, and to honor female artists whose life and work exemplifies the Venice Art Crawl’s mission of creating community through art, education, and social activism. The awards recognize achievement for its recipients and the joining of a new sisterhood in the arts.

About the Venice Art Crawl

The Venice Art Crawl is a Venice Chamber of Commerce hosted event. The VAC’s mission is to preserve the arts in Venice, a place historically known as a vibrant and dynamic art community. Our goal is to share, inspire and promote collaboration within the Venice community through mixers and live art events, and within the broader global artistic community of creators and art lovers through online events. We are an all-volunteer run non-profit organization which is a committee of the Venice Chamber of Commerce.