Julia Barajas
explores how college students achieve their goals, whether they’re fresh out of high school, pursuing graduate work or looking to join the labor force through alternative pathways.
Published September 20, 2024 4:51 PM
Beatriz Jaramillo stands next to her artwork, titled "In-Between Time." She screen printed the nine curtains in the piece with tar.
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Eric Jaipal
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Self Help Graphics & Art
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Topline:
Self Help Graphics & Art, a community arts center on the Eastside, created an exhibition about the impacts of toxic pollution in L.A. County — and how Angelenos are working to reclaim their communities.
Why it matters: Toxic pollution can impact local residents’ health and quality of life. The exhibition includes art about companies like Exide, a defunct battery recycler that spewed lead into surrounding neighborhoods for decades. That lead found its way into the soil of homes in Southeast L.A., where many families have stopped gardening and are reluctant to let their children play outside.
Exide — a now-shuttered battery recycling plant in the city of Vernon — spewed lead into thousands of homes in Southeast Los Angeles County for decades. Despite growing up in the area, Marvella Muro did not learn about the plant till she was an adult.
She recalled an environmental justice symposium at East L.A. College, where a group of students shared that they had elevated levels of lead in their blood. Muro said she worried about her health, her loved ones, and the potential of having lead-ridden soil surrounding her home.
The session stayed with her. Years later, Muro became a curator at Self Help Graphics & Art, a community arts center in Boyle Heights. When the Getty announced that the next theme of its giant, cross-site arts event — PST ART — would be “Art & Science Collide,” Muro knew exactly what she wanted to do.
She and her team reached out to local artists. With the help of community members, they put together “Sinks: Places We Call Home.” The exhibition opens Saturday at Cal State L.A. and depicts how toxic pollutants have impacted local residents’ health and quality of life.
“This exhibition is very L.A. focused,” Muro said, “but [the issue is] something that really impacts communities nationwide.”
Good to know
“Sinks: Places We Call Home” will be on view through February 15, 2025. It opens to the public on Saturday, September 21, 2024, from 5–8 p.m. You can get tickets to the opening here.
The exhibition is free to the public. But if you drive there, you’ll have to pay $5 for four hours of parking. (The closest parking lot is Structure C.)
Address: Luckman Fine Arts Complex at Cal State L.A. 5151 State University Drive Los Angeles, CA 90032
Art rooted in history
The exhibition takes its name from “Geographies of Race and Ethnicity II,” an essay by social scientist Laura Pulido. In the essay, Pulido says:
“Industry and manufacturing require sinks — places where pollution can be deposited. Sinks typically are land, air, or water, but racially devalued bodies can also function as sinks.”
Muro said she thought this was fitting, because polluters often treat low-income communities of color as dumping grounds.
The exhibition opens with a collection of pieces that highlight the natural beauty and potential harms of living in L.A. County — everywhere from Frogtown to Signal Hill.
Marvella Muro, the curator of the exhibition, contributed a letter she received from the Department of Toxic Substances Control regarding contaminated soil in her home.
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Eric Jaipal
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Self Help Graphics & Art
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In one section of the exhibit, a giant timeline of Willowbrook, an unincorporated community in South L.A., traces the history of contamination in what is now Magic Johnson Park. Visitors learn about the construction of a 120-acre “Tank Farm,” where companies like ExxonMobil stored petroleum products.
The company later sold the land to a developer. And on it, the developer built a housing complex that was “touted as an oasis for working-class Black families,” Muro told LAist. Those families were later displaced, after enduring cancer, leukemia, miscarriages, and other health issues.
Beatriz Jaramillo, an artist who earned her MFA at Cal State L.A., captured this history on nine translucent white curtains that hang from the ceiling of the exhibit hall.
Ahead of the exhibition, Jaramillo spent years researching the Willowbrook neighborhood. She also spoke with local residents, including members of its community garden. With their help, Jaramillo created another art piece: a large mirror surrounded by dozens of small planters. Jaramillo made each planter by hand, and community members selected the plants that were placed inside them.
Jaramillo's "In-Nature" includes 36 terracotta planters made by hand.
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Julia Barajas
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LAist
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This part of the exhibition, Jaramillo said, “invites people to reflect on our own contribution to the environment, on how we can collectively work together to improve our community.”
When the exhibition closes, she added, the Willowbrook community members will take the planters home.
Want to learn more?
The exhibition closes with a small reading area where visitors can pick up brochures on groups like Prospering Backyards. There is also a zine library, including one about an augmented reality experience at Magic Johnson Park created by Willowbrook teens.
Art connected to action
Maru Garcia had made art pieces about Exide’s impact on Southeast L.A., but the work left her feeling frustrated. “It's very important, of course, to bring attention to a problem,” she told LAist, “but I thought that was not enough . . . I was just describing something, but not really able to help in any sense.”
Garcia, who has degrees in chemistry and biotechnology, saw “Sinks” as an “opportunity to finally be in the community, and do something more hands-on.”
She also participated, with Muro, in Prospering Backyards, a group of scientists, artists, activists, and community members developing an alternative method for reducing lead in contaminated soil. (Currently, California’s Department of Toxic Substances Control remediates the soil in Southeast L.A. by removing it and replacing it with new soil. The contaminated soil gets transported elsewhere.)
Through Prospering Backyards, Garcia learned about the potential benefits of minerals known as zeolites, which suck up the lead. Garcia also learned about the ways in which soil contamination has impacted Southeast L.A. residents’ day-to-day life.
“A lot of people stopped gardening,” she said. “They also felt really bad about letting their children play in their yards.”
The sculptures in Maru Garcia's "Boiling Rock 3" are supported by steel poles that will slowly reveal the words "Madre" (Mother), "Alive," and "Home" as they dissolve.
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Eric Jaipal
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Self Help Graphics & Art
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For the exhibition, Garcia made multiple pieces inspired by her work with the community, including three 6-foot tall pillars composed of soil, zeolites, mulch, and clay. These represent the palm-sized columns of earth that they extracted from community members’ homes during the course of their research.
“Through this project, we are really trying to heal this relationship that we have with our soil,” Garcia said. “Instead of seeing it as a source of contaminants, as something that is attacking or affecting us, I want us to remember that soil is like a mother, it's a source of life.”
The fire started on a cargo ship at the Port of L.A. started Friday evening.
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Courtesy CBS LA
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Topline:
A fire broke out Friday evening on a cargo ship docked at the Port of Los Angeles. At one point, more than 180 firefighters were battling the fire.
Why it matters: Hazardous materials were in some of the cargo bays, according to LAFD captain Adam VenGerpen.
Injuries: Authorities say all crew members on the ship are accounted for with no injuries reported.
Read on ... for the latest updates.
The fire that started on a cargo ship docked at the Port of Los Angeles is now "substantially contained," according to the Port of Los Angeles.
Authorities say fire crews and ship crew members are continuing to put out the fire.
LAFD captain Adam VenGerpen told LAist the cargo ship — "ONE Henry Hudson" — was moved to open waters, less than a mile from the port, to ensure the safety of those living in San Pedro and Wilmington, as well as port operations.
A shelter-in-place order for residents in San Pedro and Wilmington has been lifted, according to VenGerpen.
Authorities say all crew members on the ship are accounted for with no injuries reported.
At one point, more than 180 firefighters were fighting the fire, which was reported at 6:38 p.m. by crew onboard as an "electrical fire" that started below deck. An explosion was reported by authorities about an hour later.
A number of cargo bays contained some hazardous materials, VenGerpen said.
He said a number of containers are believed to be damaged, but the extent won't be known until the fire is fully contained.
"Many of these cargo containers are stacked one on top of another, and they were not able to get cranes in there to start removing these," he said.
The derelict shopping center has a remarkable past
Cato Hernández
has scoured through tons of archives to understand how our region became the way it is today.
Published November 22, 2025 5:00 AM
Valley Plaza Surplus when it opened in 1957. The store used to be located at 6330 Laurel Canyon Blvd.
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Valley Times Collection/Los Angeles Public Library
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Topline:
Valley Plaza in North Hollywood has been neglected for years. As some buildings are getting demolished, we look into its legendary past and why it fell from grace.
How it began: When Valley Plaza opened in 1951, it was right when the shopping experience was changing. The developer behind the center, Bob Symonds, created a new masterplan of specially picked stores in an area that prioritized freeway access and lots of parking.
Why it was unique: Back in those days, his ideas were novel. Instead of going to individual places, customers could visit a huge range of stores at one center, including the largest Sears at the time. It became one of the most important shopping centers on the West Coast because of its design, which fueled the local economy.
Read on…. to learn more about Angelenos’ personal memories with the space.
Demolition is underway in parts of Valley Plaza, a shopping center in North Hollywood. The razing comes after years of vacancy and a vote to declare six of its dilapidated buildings a public nuisance. But did you know that this was once one of the most important shopping centers on the West Coast?
Valley Plaza may look like an ordinary strip mall that kicked the can due to the rise of online retail, but it’s actually a shell of what it once was. We’ll explore its past and wax nostalgic about its heyday with tales from Angelenos.
The novelty of Valley Plaza
The plaza first opened in 1951 at the corner of Laurel Canyon and Victory boulevards, and with it, the San Fernando Valley began a new era. Post-war, the suburbs were rapidly growing, and this center was right in the middle of all the action.
The shopping experience we know today — where you can go to one large location and find every store you need — was just starting to take shape. When developer Bob Symonds designed Valley Plaza as an open-air shopping center, it was believed to be one of the first of its kind in the United States, especially one to do so at such a scale.
His “ultra-modern” plaza got national attention for a few reasons. For one, Symonds is credited as a pioneer in Southern California for recognizing the potential of putting retail hubs next to freeways. Most developers still focused on boulevards. He also put hundreds of parking spots in front of the mall, rather than in the back, which was the normal practice. The “mammoth” shopping area, as it was hailed, was ultimately special because it brought together a huge range of stores.
I put out a call on social media for people to send me their memories.
“I remember how excited we were to have real stores near us,” wrote Pat DeCurtins, who lived in North Hollywood between the ‘40s and ‘60s. “We no longer had to order all our clothes from Spiegels Catalogue. We could buy clothes in a REAL store.”
A flooded intersection next to Valley Plaza in 1962.
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Gordon Dean
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Valley Times Collection/Los Angeles Public Library
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One of those was Sears, which opened its largest location at the time in the U.S. at Valley Plaza (it apparently smelled like popcorn, too). Sears joining was the key to getting other companies onboard. Thrifty also opened a store, signing the longest lease in its history at the time for 25 years.
Symonds was known for courting big companies and curating the plaza’s stores to blend the essential, mundane and desirable. It had mom-and-pop shops, innovative self-service grocery stores, a theater, an ice skating rink and restaurants like the Hawaiian spot Kel Luau.
“My little son and I would go to this tropical style restaurant in Valley Plaza mall across from the ice skating arena,” wrote Cassandra Adams. “We would have blue drinks from a glass shell with two long straws. They would put a sugar cube floating on top and light it on fire. It was really fun!”
Valley Plaza’s downward spiral
Valley Plaza was a roaring success for a while. It brought in $100 million in annual sales in its first five years and was a big employment boost for the community. The plaza would later expand to cover more than 1 million square feet, ranking it as one of the largest in the nation.
A group of store managers pose in front of new Valley Plaza signage with developer Bob Symonds and honorary Valley Plaza mayor Anita Gordon in April 1957.
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Valley Times Collection/Los Angeles Public Library
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It even had the tallest building in the San Fernando Valley with the Los Angeles Federal Savings and Loan Tower, now known as Valley Plaza Tower. Built in 1960, the 165-foot-tall building was one of the first skyscrapers constructed after the repeal of the city of L.A.’s building height limit a few years prior.
In the decades after, Valley Plaza slowly declined. The area’s demographics shifted, meaning shopping habits changed, and vacant spots in the center weren’t replaced with similar quality stores. The plaza’s future was also hard to plan because it had dozens of owners at one point, ranging from corporations to a 90-year-old widow, according to UCLA research.
But one event may have sealed its fate: the Northridge Earthquake of 1994. According to an L.A. City Council motion, many of the buildings were red-tagged, and tenants who didn’t have the capital for repairs got evicted.
Since then, Valley Plaza has been a thorn in L.A.’s side. While some of it has been redeveloped, numerous plans for the center have failed. Owners haven’t fixed the broken-down lots. L.A. leaders even explored the possibility of using eminent domain to take it over.
It’s not known yet what will happen to Valley Plaza once demolition is completed, but some say it will be sorely missed.
“So many memories,” wrote Rhonda Theodoulou, who had her ninth birthday there. “It’s been a shame what that area has looked like for many years. I hope it’s developed into a newer thriving area again.”
Corita (Sister Mary Corita, IHM) and Sister Magdalen Mary, IHM, Paris, France, 1959, 35 mm slide.
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Courtesy Corita Art Center
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Topline:
Today at the Marciano Arts Foundation is Corita Day — a celebration of so-called 'pop art nun' Corita Kent. The day features artmaking and a chance to see Kent's photographic work.
Why it matters: Kent died in 1986, but her powerful messages of social justice have perhaps at no time in Los Angeles history been clearer. And now her work is resonating with a new generation of activists and art enthusiasts.
The backstory: A pop artist, educator and nun who later left the Catholic Church, Kent’s colorful silkscreen prints gained attention during challenging moments in L.A.’s past, from the 1960s civil rights movement to apartheid.
A pop artist, educator and nun who later left the Catholic Church, Kent’s colorful silkscreen prints gained attention during challenging moments in L.A.’s past, from the 1960s civil rights movement to apartheid.
Kent died in 1986, but her powerful messages of social justice have perhaps at no time in Los Angeles history been clearer. And now her work is resonating with a new generation of activists and art enthusiasts, with a celebration of her life today at the Marciano Arts Foundation, also the site of a current exhibition of her photographs.
“In hard times, we always go back to the poets to tell us how to live,” said Hanneke Skerath, curator of the exhibit Corita Kent: The Sorcery of Images, open through January 24 at the Marciano Arts Foundation in Mid-Wilshire.
A print by Corita Kent from 1963, titled "luke 2.14, 51"
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Courtesy Corita Art Center
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“We go back to Corita, to… artists who always dealt with these bigger questions and were part of a community and [who] built community.”
From religious order to the world of Pop Art
Largely self-taught, Ken started making her signature silkscreen prints while teaching at the arts department at Immaculate Heart College Arts by Griffith Park for nearly two decades until the late 1960s. Her style evolved to become part of the pop art movement, pulling inspiration from the mundane (cereal boxes emblazoned with “The best to you each morning”) to the divine (“be of love”) to the political (“stop the bombing”).
Her silkscreen prints have been shown internationally, the exhibit at Marciano Arts Foundation focuses on Kent’s work as a photographer — and a chronicler of Los Angeles through her teaching at the arts department at Immaculate Heart College.
Chronicler of L.A. as a photographer
Distorted ad, source material, 1967, 35 mm slide.
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Courtesy Corita Art Center
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Student project, Immaculate Heart College, ca. 1966, 35 mm slide
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Courtesy Corita Art Center
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“Of course, she became famous for her silk screens and prints, but she would use these [photographic] images all the time in the classroom, but also in her public talks all around the country,” Skerath said of Kent’s photography. Skerath noted that while Kent only had an analog slide carousel to show her work, the exhibit at the Marciano took some liberties to make her photographs feel larger than life.
To take in the full exhibit at the Marciano, Skerath set up bean bag chairs for visitors to sit in the unique space (the museum is housed in a former Masonic temple). Kent left over 15,000 slides in her archive that the Corita Art Center digitized. “It's like this treasure trove,” Skerath said. “Those images have been used as illustrations but never really presented in an exhibition,” she said. Skerath added that she felt “close to Corita” in selecting the show’s images. “I was able to make a selection of over a thousand images that, for me, really represent her way of seeing.”
Installation view of Corita Kent: The Sorcery of Images at Marciano Art Foundation.
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Michael Anthony Hernandez
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Courtesy Marciano Art Foundation
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Nellie Scott runs the Corita Art Center, which was founded in 1997 but recently relocated to a new space in the Arts District. She hopes that the Maricano exhibit helps shed more light on who Kent was as a person as well as an artist. “We know that [photography] is part of her process. But for people to see the intimacy maybe behind the scenes of what it was like to be a nun, that they're human and … if [Kent] was alive today, she'd wear orange and she'd laugh and she'd go grocery shopping.”
Amongst the more than one thousand images projected in immersive format at the Marciano exhibit are L.A. landmarks both small and large, from everyday sites like the Market Basket (now Lazy Acres in Los Feliz) all the way to Simon Rodia’s Watts Towers installation.
A print by Corita Kent from 1969, titled "king's dream"
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Arthur Evans
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Courtesy Corita Art Center
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Scott sees the photographs and Kent’s teachings around Los Angeles with her students as a social justice tool. “Looking and seeing are not the same thing,” she said. “Sometimes taking the whole world [in] is really hard at once. But if you can start with the square foot you're standing in, you can start with your neighbor, if you can start with your street – it's like, okay, I can start taking everything in.”
Corita Day on Saturday
Corita Kent
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Courtesy Corita Art Center
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The Corita Art Center is one of the few art spaces in the country dedicated to a single female artist and the new space, which exhibits Kent’s work and is responsible for maintaining her archive, is open once a week to the public. Scott has been working closely with the Marciano Arts Foundation on the new show. “When the invitation from Hanneke [came in] …especially with everything that's happening in the world, to be able to amplify messages of hope and peace and love– how could we not share that?” Scott said.
Corita Day Marciano Arts Foundation, 4357 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles Saturday, Nov. 22, from 1 to 4 p.m. The event includes art making for all ages and a performance from Bob Baker’s Marionettes at 2 p.m.
Skerath and Scott are aware that Kent isn’t a household name like her contemporaries Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, and Ed Ruscha, but they hope these new efforts bring more attention to someone who’s been overlooked in the pop art canon. “There's been great surveys of Corita’s work, but oh gosh, is a really deep retrospective overdue,” Scott said. An upcoming documentary from filmmaker and former Corita Art Center consultant Jillian Schultz,You Should Never Blink, is also looking to do just that when it hits festivals next year.
Kent “absolutely deserves a cradle-to-grave biographical documentary but beyond that, it's really important for us to show how her legacy lives on and how influential she is specifically for artists living and working and practicing now,” Schultz said.
Adolfo Guzman-Lopez
is an arts and general assignment reporter on LAist's Explore LA. team.
Published November 22, 2025 5:00 AM
"Marketplace" host Kai Ryssdal, left, with Joey Galloway, owner of a commercial property that was consumed in the Eaton fire.
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Andie Corban
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Marketplace
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Topline
Five Altadena businesses reopen Saturday with a community celebration after damage from the January fires.
Why it matters: These five Altadena businesses considered closing but have reopened to help the neighborhoods around them rebuild.
Details about the celebration: It’s taking place Saturday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at 2455 Lake Ave., Altadena
Read on ... to find details and to learn more about each business.
Five businesses at one of Altadena’s community hubs are celebrating their reopening today with a celebration after damage from the January fires.
The L.A. fires have displaced thousands of people, from residents to business owners, and destroyed a number of homes and businesses.
The five businesses at Mariposa Junction — located at the intersection of Lake Avenue and Mariposa Street — considered closing but have reopened to help their neighborhood rebuild.
“We’re just hoping that the people who are in the neighborhood will remember to come shop local and that hopefully some of the people, people who are displaced but close by will remember to come up and patronize the businesses as well,” said Caroline Britton, owner of Carciofi Design, one of the shops that's reopening.
Retro fashion boutique Sidecca, Betsy Restaurant, Ms. Dragon Print & Copy and McGinty's Gallery are also part of the reopening celebration.
The January fires were the most destructive in L.A. County history, killing at least 30 people and destroying more than 16,000 structures.
The one-year anniversary is approaching as efforts to rebuild are ongoing.
It will take years for residential and business areas to return to their vibrancy before the fires, if at all. That’s why these business owners want to celebrate this accomplishment.
