Prototype Issue
Recycled Service Station Pumps Out Sustainable Solutions
By Thomas McKenzie
(page 1 of 1)The Gateway to Venice Beach, where Venice and Abbot Kinney boulevards intersect, has seen mostly traffic and transition throughout the years. Not anymore.
On the southeast corner, a stylish sustainable-living-solutions center has emerged where an auto-repair shop once stood. The service-station building, with its shiny steel-and-glass garage doors and its low long profile, retains its classic ’50s feel, but something different is happening here.
Adorable, zero-emission electric cars and scooters made by ZAP! are sold here. The interior of the garage was gutted, cleaned and remodeled with sustainable building materials. A vegetative roof and solar panels are planned.
Sasha King, opened epOxyGreen in March, a sustainable-design-solutions center in one part of the center. Here, customers can purchase eco-friendly goods such as framing materials, wood flooring, tile, earthen plaster, paint, countertops, carpet, gorgeous organic rugs and decor.
A recent LA transplant, King has a passion for providing ideas, materials and training for do-it-yourself environmental building and redecorating in LA. “We’re using the space as a resource,” King explained, “a place where people can come and learn.”
Because the materials and applications have been rethought with sustainability in mind, education is an important facet to promoting their use. “The materials are new. How they’re used and the different ways they can be used are also new.”
King, 35, who is African American, recently moved to the LA area from New York and lives in Winnetka, where she did business-system consulting as a certified public accountant. “I’ve been providing services to entrepreneurs for years, but I never had hands-on entrepreneurial experience. I’m training myself to be in the space that I’m working in.”
She said it has been difficult to find a sense of community here, but she is eager to explore the different ’hoods that make up LA. With her green business and CPA background, she hopes to provide valuable resources. “On a community level, we want to reach out to young people and offer information about how green building can be affordable.”
King’s “conscious consumer” business model values progressive partnerships and change and promotes social responsibility, the environment and profit. “It’s not like you spend money and then you’re done,” she said. “That’s a limited way of understanding economy. When you circulate resources, those resources continue to grow.”
With beautiful cork flooring, cool clay-stucco walls and sea air breezing through the open garage door, epOxyGreen evokes dreams of building and redecorating with a sustainable flare. King carries only the highest-quality materials that comply with the greenest of standards and she spends much of her time researching new products and making sure they support the sustainable movement.
Next door to epOxyGreen, in two garage berths from which hydraulic lifts were removed, visitors can indulge their senses with eco-themed fine art at epOxybOx gallery. King’s partner, Deborah Greene, 40, a self-described visionary entrepreneur, obtained the site two years ago. King saw to it that the land was brought back to health and she opened epOxybOx.
Greene is a Venice local with a history of community activism. Her gallery features ’exhibits that explorenotions of sustainability through works by Basil Tantaros, whose found-object lamps reuse the detritus of bygone eras, and Dianna Cohen’s colorful stitched-plastic shopping-bag pieces that ironically comment on our consumer culture. Greene also curates revolving exhibits that feature epOxybOx represented artists.
King and Greene host parties, readings, fundraisers and yoga workshops at their space. The epOxyGreen Marketplace is their latest venture. It offers eco-workshops and produce shopping on the first and third Sunday of every month. And whether it’s a star-studded gala or a grassroots gathering, all of their events are garbage-free—trash is either composted or recycled.
Rising from its former life as a place that was a reminder of our fossil-fuel-dependent habit, the structure on the corner of Venice and Abbot Kinney is now a beacon for greener living. Greene and King will continue to promote their shop as the environmentally sustainable and socially responsible haven it is.
"Sasha King has a passion for providing ideas, materials and training for do-it-yourself environmental building and redecorating in LA. Because the materials and applications have been rethought with sustainability in mind, education is an important facet."
As Kenyan environmental activist Wangari Maathai said upon receiving the Nobel Peace Prize, “The challenge is to restore the home of the tadpoles and give back to our children a world of beauty and wonder.”
epOxyGreen and epOxybOx 602 Venice Blvd., Venice EG: 310-578-2123 EB: 310-862-4242 www.epoxybox.com
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