Kathy Reges

DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES — The LA Times yesterday reported that Kathy Reges, one of the founders of the Brewery Arts Complex, died last Thursday.

Kathleen "Kathy" Reges, who helped her estranged husband, Richard Carlson, develop the Brewery in downtown Los Angeles as an art colony, has died. She was 49.

Reges died Thursday at County-USC Medical Center of a heart attack, according to her companion, environmental designer Leonard Pate. He said she was hospitalized for treatment of multiple injuries resulting in cardiovascular trauma after a fall at her home at the Brewery complex.

... Reges quickly became a kind of den mother to the artists who moved into the more than 250 spaces, helping them show and sell their work to art lovers she encouraged to visit.

"She not only supported artists, she also knew how to inspire them," Pate said. "She had an innate sense of putting people together who would never have met otherwise, often forming creative and lifelong bonds. This might be her true legacy."

You can read about their home in Northwestern's Renew magazine.