DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES — The semi annual Downtown Brewery Art Walk may be more than a month away, but this weekend one artist is opening up his studio a little early to showcase his once in a lifetime trip along the ancient Silk Route in Northwest China.

In August 2001, photographer and Doctor Bruce Brown joined a southern California medical delegation to travel to the remote northwest region of Xinjaing, China.

Their goal was to travel the Silk Road of China and to the Kazak Traditional Medicine Hospital in Altai in northern Xinjaing, bringing much-needed medical equipment to the facility and provide medical lectures to the local doctors and nurses.

Departing just two weeks before the 9-11 attacks in the United States, the group traveled to within a few miles from the China-Afghanistan border.

Xinjiang is an enormous territory and is home to a mix of divers ethnic groups that includes Muslim Uyghurs, Kazaks, and Tajiks, Buddhist Mongolians and Han Chinese. During the journey Doctor Brown was fascinated with the people he met and began to document what he saw along the way.

From the capital city of Urumqi in the Xinjiang Autonomous Region, to the Kazakh Hospital in Altai City near Russia, Dr. Brown and his companions traveled to the western city of Kashi, an ancient hub of the Silk Road, inhabited mainly by the Uyghur people. Onward to meet the Kyrgyst near Karakuli Lake, and the Tajik in Taxkorgan in the Pamir. Then to the Uyghur oases towns of the southern Taklimakan Desert, including Yengisar, home of the famously beautiful Uyghur pocket knives, and Hotan, famous for producing white jade.

67 photographs from his historic trip will be on display Saturday and Sunday evening at the Brewery.

October 4 & 5th / 7pm - 11pm / Valet Parking available / Studio 604 at the Brewery / 604 Moulton Avenue / Los Angeles, CA 90031