A Modern Renaissance Man
- May 3
- 5 min read
Updated: May 5
Mike Falkow is the CEO of Meritus Media, a PR and digital marketing agency based in Los Angeles. He is also known for his work as a creative director in former roles at Falkow Creative and Rogue Magazine. He's a published author of the novel Desert Storm, released in 2025, and host of the ProActive Podcast.
In an era that rewards specialization, there is something quietly radical about a person who refuses to live in only one lane. The modern Renaissance man is not a relic of another age, nor is he simply someone with many interests. He is someone who understands that creativity, business, craftsmanship, culture, and legacy are not separate worlds at all, but connected expressions of the same life. Dave Tourjé is a compelling example of that way of living.
Tourjé is best known in many circles as an artist and founder of the California Locos, the influential Southern California collective whose work draws from surf and skate culture, punk, graffiti, tattoo, design, and the broader visual language of Los Angeles. His work has long reflected that collision of so called high and low culture, blending fine art with the energy of the street, the garage, the beach, and the boulevard.
But the deeper story is not simply that he makes art. It is that he has built a life around making, restoring, preserving, documenting, and shaping culture from multiple angles at once. He is also a successful businessman, and that duality matters. It suggests a way of living in which aesthetics and enterprise do not compete, but reinforce each other.
That same impulse toward preservation and cultural stewardship can be seen in his role with the Chouinard Foundation. It is one thing to create new work. It is another to help preserve the lineage, values, and institutions that shaped generations of artists in the first place. In a culture obsessed with novelty, there is something deeply important about people who also understand the value of memory.
That preservation instinct extends beyond institutions. It also appears in the way Dave approaches place itself. He purchased and restored a château in Pasadena previously owned by Jacqueline and Norman Blank, a residence designed by Sylvanus Marsden. It would be easy to see this simply as a real estate story, but it is more revealing than that. Restoration, in the hands of someone like Tourjé, becomes another form of authorship. It is not only about ownership. It is about stewardship, taste, continuity, and the belief that beautiful things with history deserve to be brought forward rather than erased.
This is one of the clearest markers of a true Renaissance mindset. It is not only about output. It is about worldview. It is about understanding that building a meaningful life requires both invention and stewardship. The Renaissance man does not simply create new things. He also protects the lineage, language, and craft that made those new things possible in the first place.
That idea is visible again in Tourjé’s work as a documentary filmmaker. His creative life does not stop at the canvas or the built environment. He has developed documentary projects around the California Locos and Top Jimmy and the Rhythm Pigs, and is also in the early stages of a film centered on Rory Gallagher and a guitar from Dave’s own collection. Seen together, these projects suggest an artist deeply drawn to cultural memory, iconic figures, and the objects and stories that might otherwise fade with time.
Film, for him, is not a departure from painting or construction. It is another extension of the same instinct, to observe closely, to tell stories, and to preserve people, places, music, and ideas before they disappear. That instinct feels especially relevant now, at a time when so much culture is consumed quickly and forgotten even faster. A documentary practice pushes in the opposite direction. It asks us to slow down, to pay attention, and to recognize the value of legacy.
It also shows up in the unexpected places where art meets fashion and design. Tourjé is now developing a line of truck style hats under the California Locos brand, but these are not ordinary merchandise pieces. They are being conceived more like art objects, using unusual and elevated materials such as sterling silver buttons and premium denim. The hats will also be displayed at the Millard Sheets Center, adding another visual layer to the California Locos presentation. In collaboration with Joshua and Abraham Paskowitz, the project introduces another dimension of the Renaissance idea, the belief that everyday objects can also carry meaning, beauty, narrative, and craft.
That collaboration with the Paskowitz family extends into another project rooted in American mythology and California history, the restoration of the famous Paskowitz family van. That van is more than a vehicle. It is a symbol of freedom, family, surf culture, movement, and an older form of American self invention. In restoring it, and in looking toward a documentary series around it, Tourjé once again reveals the same pattern that runs through his life and work, a fascination with the things that carry memory, identity, and cultural meaning.
This is what makes the phrase Renaissance man feel earned rather than ornamental. In lesser hands, a multi role life can feel scattered. In Tourjé’s case, it feels integrated. The art, the business, the architecture, the film work, the preservation, the fashion experiments, the cultural collaborations, and the documentary storytelling all seem to belong to one coherent worldview.
That worldview is also visible in the work happening now. An upcoming California Locos presentation, LOCOS Origins, will bring together major works from 2001 to the present as part of the larger Play Pavilion exhibition at the Millard Sheets Art Center. It is the first time these works will be publicly displayed together in this way, turning the show into more than an event. It becomes a statement about continuity, roots, and cultural memory.
That may be the real lesson here. In a world that often pushes people to choose a single identity, artist or entrepreneur, visionary or operator, maker or thinker, Tourjé represents a more integrated model. The most interesting lives are rarely built through narrow categories. They are built through curiosity, range, discipline, and the willingness to follow a creative instinct wherever it leads.
There is, of course, a risk in living this way. A multi layered life can confuse people who are more comfortable with neat labels. But when it is lived with coherence, it becomes something else entirely. It becomes a philosophy. The point is not to do many things for the sake of it. The point is to recognize the thread running through them all.
With Tourjé, that thread seems clear, art, craftsmanship, California culture, history, and the urge to build. Build artworks. Build businesses. Build institutions. Build films. Build objects. Build stories. Build spaces where culture can live and evolve. One might also replace the word “build” with the word “create” and it would still ring true.
That is what makes the Renaissance man relevant now. He reminds us that a meaningful life is not assembled from disconnected achievements, but from a body of work, a pattern of values, and a long conversation between what we make and what we preserve, and that may be the most modern thing of all.
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Read more from Mike Falkow
Mike Falkow, Strategist, Creative Director, and Writer
Mike Falkow is the CEO of Meritus Media, a PR and digital marketing agency in Los Angeles. He helps founders and brands turn expertise into coverage, thought leadership, and measurable growth. Previously a creative director at Falkow Creative and Rogue Magazine, he is the author of the 2025 novel Desert Storm and host of the ProActive Podcast.
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