11 holiday gifts to pick up that support Los Angeles stores and institutions

There’s not a lot about this spring that we can really look back on with fondness, but the Getty’s viral art challenge left us laughing and impressed. Now you can flip through the social media-submitted art recreations in paperback with this collection of 246 art re-creations that people made using items in their homes (think: Starry Night made out of spaghetti or The Creation of Adam with pups touching paws).

One of the best wine shops in the city makes gifting easy peasy with themed wine-centric gift boxes so you can shop for the activist, the psychic, the witch, the stoner, the “kinky adventurer,” the nerd, and even the L.A. lover in your life. Each box includes a bottle of Vivovore’s expertly curated wines—which are all from women makers—and some extremely fun bits and bobs to enjoy as you sip: Boxes might include locally made candles and crystals, or novels and enamel pins. There’s even a gift box that includes hemp pasta, a jar of red sauce, a wedge of parm and a blunt to go with that bottle.

We can’t be the only ones who miss going to the library, right? Artist Anthony Petrie designed this awesome Art Deco-inspired print of the Central Library and released a rainbow foil edition this year for Pride Month. You can pick up the print through the Library Store’s website.

Elegant and a little bougie, Venice mainstay Gjusta makes some of the finest pantry goods out of meticulously sourced spices, produce and oils. Its sibling shop, Gjusta Goods, sells gorgeous housewares. You can wrap them up together thanks to Gjusta’s line of gift boxes, which can combine the two and come themed for coffee lovers (handmade ceramic cups with fresh biscotti and a bag of house beans), well-stocked home cooks (granola, the cult-classic seeded honey, seasonal jam, marinated olive oil), and ramen enthusiasts (charcoal bowls, wooden spoons and the like).

A puppet show and a little cup of ice cream at the Bob Baker Marionette Theater are practically a childhood rite of passage. Though you can’t hang out with the marionettes over cup of ice cream again quite yet, you can bring home this iron-on keepsake—and support the theater at the same time.

We could all use a bit of calm after making it through this year, so whether you’re shopping for the avid tea-lover in your life or simply someone who might want to take a breather, there’s STEEP LA. The trendy and small-batch tea shop in Chinatown sells delicate and artful tea blends and accessories, and it just so happens that it also released its first travel set: a chic on-the-go teapot made of bamboo, ceramic and glass, along with cups and a travel case so you can bring some serenity with you wherever you’re headed in 2021.

Mid-City bookstore Reparations Club brought to our attention this beautifully-presented box set of a pair of prescient novels from Pasadena sci-fi author Octavia E. Butler. If you’re unfamiliar, the two-book series from the 1990s is set in a 2020s dystopian Los Angeles that’s been ravaged by climate change and income inequality and—we swear we’re not making this up—is ruled by a president who wants to “make America great again.”

The late Venezuelan-born, Santa Monica-based artist experienced a wave of appreciation just shy of her hundredth birthday. If this unlined journal from LACMA, which features a 1951 canvas on the cover, can inspire even a fraction of Hurtado’s creativity then we think it’s a worthwhile gift.

We’d fill our entire cupboard with donabe from Toiro if we could. But we’ll start small instead. If you’re introducing someone to the world of hot pot or rice cookers, or shopping for a solo chef,  try this utterly adorable petite donabe. The handcrafted clay pot fits about 3/4 cup and is oven, stovetop and microwave safe.

The Hammer Museum’s biennial is the survey of L.A.’s emerging artists. But with no opening in sight for the exhibition, this printed extension—which collects essays from the artists and photos from their studios—offers a taste that’s sure to intrigue the artistically curious. It also happened to go to print right before everything shut down, which makes this book one of the last documents of the Before Time.

Let a Michelin-starred restaurant stock your loved one’s pantry this holiday season. DTLA’s lauded kappo-style restaurant Shibumi recently started making its own line of bottled pantry goods, including ponzu made with the recipe from Kyoto’s three-Michelin–starred Kikunoi; seaweed salt featuring Japanese sansho peppercorn; orgeat spiced with orange-flower water and Japanese sugar; a traditional unagi tare made with roasted eel bones; and house-fermented koji miso. They run between $6 and $10 apiece, but why not make it a set for $46?