The Brief

The Mexican tradition of Day of the Dead, the holiday that honors loved ones who have passed, is by now internationally renowned.

The 2017 Pixar animated film Coco — inspired by the holiday — is available in nearly 50 languages. The calavera, a skull that’s a common symbol for Day of the Dead, can be found on all sorts of products including T-shirts and bags. But for most of the holiday’s history, it was not well-known outside of Mexico or the Mexican communities abroad that continued to celebrate it.

Day of the Dead started to emerge in popular culture in the 1970s during the Chicano movement and one artist who was critical in that transformation was Ofelia Esparza. Today, Esparza is 93 and on Oct. 18, the Vincent Price Art Museum in East L.A. will exhibit her first solo show "Ofelia Esparza: A Retrospective."

Esparza’s early life in East LA

Ofelia Esparza lived many lives before she became L.A.’s preeminent altarista. She was born in East L.A. in 1932, the first generation daughter of a family from Huanímaro, Guanajuato. Her family was so steeped in the traditions and customs of her parents’ home town that Esparza was often confused about where she actually lived.

“ I used to ask my mother, ‘Estamos en Mexico? Are we in Mexico?’” Esparza said.

Her mother, seeing that she liked to draw, encouraged her artistic inclinations,

“My mother started saving the meat wrappings — the butcher paper. She would cut out the edges and iron them," Esparza said. "So that was my paper.”

Every year her family created ofrendas — altars covered in marigolds, found objects and photos of loved ones who have passed to honor the dead — during Day of the Dead, as well as elaborate nacimientos, or nativity scenes during Christmas time. Esparza was surrounded by folk art and was encouraged to nurture her creativity but did not imagine a career in the arts.

Ofelia Esparza’s altar “Raices Cosmicas” includes aspects of indigenous religion. For Esparza, the jaguar in the altar represents the “lord of the night” and acts as a protector in Mayan mythology.

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James Chow

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She went on to have nine children with her husband Amado. After, she started a career as a teacher at City Terrace Elementary School.

“In my family, I was always the artist. In my class, I was the artist,” Esparza said, “But I think where [I was] really validated as an artist was at Self-Help Graphics.”

Sharing ofrendas from East LA to the world

 Self-Help Graphics was a community art center in East L.A. co-founded in 1970 by a nun named Sister Karen Boccalero. When Sister Karen learned that Esparza grew up making altares at home with her family, she asked Esparza to help lead workshops and make ofrendas for the center's Day of the Dead celebrations. Through that work, Esparza started to be recognized as a master alterista.

“ [Self-Help Graphics] sent me to Glasgow, Scotland in 1996. [I] was in Chicago, at the Mexican Museum.  It was just tapping into the community,” Esparza said.

Esparza would later be chosen as one of the consultants on the Pixar film Coco. The animators told her that the marigold bridge between the world of the living and the dead was inspired by how she spoke about the role of the ofrendas as a bridge.

Humbly, Esparza said that this link between our present and our past is something that she constantly encountered as she shared her ofrenda making practice abroad.

“  Our practices, our culture is very much similar all over the world,” Esparza said, “People — especially people native to their regions — have celebrated ancestors. We are linked, we are connected.”

The Esparza family recreated an altar called “Flowers from Sister Karen’s Garden.”

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James Chow

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What to expect at Esparza’s first solo show

“ To see it all there, it's beyond my wildest dreams,” Esparza said, with tears in her eyes, during the final days leading up to the opening of "Ofelia Esparza: A Retrospective" at the Vincent Price Art Museum.

The show will feature multiple ofrendas dedicated to people who’ve passed and made an impact on her life, including Sister Karen Boccalero and Esparza’s family members.

“ It's like a family reunion in a way. It's just the times and places I had never imagined I would revisit them all at the same time and it's wonderful,” Esparza said.

The show also features paintings of Esparza’s that have never been shown before and the recreation of a nacimiento, or nativity scene which was a ritual just as — if not more — important to Esparza’s family as the Day of the Dead ofrendas. 

Esparza’s 64-year-old daughter Rosanna Esparza Ahrens was at the museum with her mom helping set up and she told me that she hopes the Latino community in L.A. feels embraced by this show.

“ We've been here and we belong here. During this time come to this space to see yourself reflected, and you could spend more than just a walk through a gallery, this is an experience,” Esparza Ahrens said.

Her mom, Ofelia Esparza, added, “This remembrance and this kind of work just connects us at a deeper level as human beings.”

LACMA’s first Van Gogh isn’t a painting of blue flowers, golden wheat fields or aged faces. It’s of a parked stagecoach, and it’s considered a good example of what made the Dutch painter, and the Impressionist movement he was a part of, so revolutionary.

The painting is called “Tarascon Stagecoach.” It was painted in 1888 and was donated to LACMA earlier this year by the Henry and Rose Pearlman Foundation.

It’s LACMA’s first Van Gogh painting, and the encyclopedic museum will be showing it off starting Sunday in a show called “Collecting Impressionism at LACMA” that focuses on 100 works from LACMA’s collection. The works are arranged chronologically to show the evolving tastes that have shaped the museum's collection of Impressionist art.

The museum’s acquisition isn’t just a win for the museum. The museum-going public and the region’s teenage and college-age students also will benefit.

“I very much remember seeing Van Gogh in a rotunda space in the [Philadelphia Museum of Art] and finding it to be just so striking because of these luscious, bright colors,” said Summer Sloane-Britt, who saw her first Van Goh during a middle school visit to the museum.

Sloane-Britt now is a professor of art and art history at Occidental College.

“Visual analysis and seeing objects in person is always so core to historical learning and for studio artists as well,” Sloane-Britt said.

And seeing a Van Gogh in person, Sloane-Britt said, and saying you don’t like it is also OK because that signals the work has led you to identify and assert your own aesthetic tastes in art.

Van Gogh road trip in LA. Shotgun!

The LACMA exhibit presents a good opportunity to get on the road for a four-stop Van Gogh road trip without leaving L.A. County.

Van Gogh's "Irises"

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Courtesy Getty Museum

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You can start at LACMA and see “Tarascon Stagecoach,” benefiting from the context of seeing other impressionist works by Van Gogh’s contemporaries.

Hop over to the Hammer Museum in Westwood, where you’ll see “Hospital at Saint-Rémy,” one of three paintings by Van Gogh in the collection.

Then head west on Wilshire Boulevard to the Getty to see “Irises,” one of the paintings that’s made Van Gogh an art star.

"The Mulberry Tree," a painting by Vincent Van Gogh, on display at the Norton Simon Museum

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Courtesy Norton Simon Museum

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End your Van Gogh road trip by heading east to Pasadena to the Norton Simon Museum. The museum’s smaller, more intimate setting is a good place to see the museum’s six, yes six, Van Gogh paintings.

The exhibit also will feature the newly acquired work "The Artist’s Garden, Vétheuil" by Claude Monet.

The new year doesn’t just bring new gifts and new resolutions. It also brings new laws.

State and local lawmakers have a lot on tap for 2026 when it comes to housing laws that will affect Southern California renters and landlords.

From refrigerators to fire damage, from development streamlining to rent control caps, LAist has rounded up the legal changes coming next year that you need to know.

AB 628: No more ‘no fridge’ apartment listings

Starting Jan. 1, landlords must provide tenants with a working refrigerator and stove. Many landlords already offer these appliances, but the L.A. area stands out nationwide for having an unusually high proportion of fridge-less apartments.

Next year, L.A. newcomers will no longer be taking to social media to express incredulity at all the city’s bring-your-own-fridge apartments. If landlords fail to provide refrigerators or stoves in good working condition, apartments will be considered uninhabitable under the new law.

SB 610: Landlords must clean smoke damage

In the weeks and months after the January fires, many renters struggled to get their landlords to address toxic ash that blew into apartments and rental homes that remained standing. Some landlords said cleaning up the smoke damage was not their responsibility. Initial communication from local public officials was confusing on what tenants were supposed to do.

This new law, which partially was driven by LAist’s reporting, clarifies that in the wake of a natural disaster, “it shall be the duty of a landlord” to remove “hazards arising from the disaster, including, but not limited to, the presence of mold, smoke, smoke residue, smoke odor, ash, asbestos or water damage.”

SB 79: Upzoning LA neighborhoods near transit

L.A.’s City Council voted to oppose it. Mayor Karen Bass asked the governor to veto it. But California’s big new upzoning law passed anyway. Its changes are set to take effect July 1, 2026.

Under the law, new apartment buildings up to nine stories tall will be allowed next to rail stations, and buildings up to five stories tall will be allowed within a half-mile of rapid bus stops. This upzoning applies to neighborhoods within those transit zones, even if they’re currently zoned only for single-family homes.

Next comes the implementation. The law could give renters more options once new housing is constructed. But L.A. could choose to delay the law’s effects in some areas for years. Ahead of the law’s passage, City Attorney Hydee Feldstein Soto sent legislators a letter opposing the bill, signaling what could turn into a legal showdown over the bill.

AB 246: Protecting Social Security recipients during government shutdowns

Tenants can face eviction three days after missing their rent. During this year’s federal government shutdown — the longest on record — that swift timeline was a cause for anxiety among tenants who count on federal benefits to cover their rent.

Though this year’s shutdown did not affect regular Social Security payments, this law will give Social Security recipients a defense in eviction court if they ever stop receiving benefits because of any future shutdowns. Under the law, renters will be required to repay their missed rent, or enter a repayment plan, within two weeks of their Social Security payments being restored.

Lower rent control caps in the city of LA

After years of debate, the L.A. City Council passed a new cap on annual rent hikes in the roughly three-quarters of city apartments covered by local rent control rules.

The City Council enacted a new 4% limit, replacing a 40-year-old formula that allowed increases as high as 10% in some units during periods of high inflation. Councilmembers also ended a 2% additional increase for landlords who cover tenants’ gas and electricity costs.

The city had a nearly four-year rent freeze in place during the COVID-19 pandemic that ended in February 2024. That means many L.A. tenants are scheduled to receive their next rent hike Feb. 1, 2026. They should be getting a 30-day notice soon. Each year’s limit is determined by recent inflation data. The current cap of 3% is set to last until June 30.