The Brief

For the last five years, artist Tidawhitney Lek’s work has focused on the domestic space in Los Angeles. She paints contemporary figurative, representational works, incorporating the residential architecture of L.A. Sunsets, palm trees and those curly iron security bars so common on houses throughout L.A. show up on her canvases.

She recently spoke with How To LA about how she got started, and her process. It’s all part of an occasional series in which we hear from artists about how they see the city.

How To LA podcast host Brian De Los Santos speaks with Long Beach painter Tidawhitney Lek in her downtown Los Angeles studio about her artwork.

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Victoria Alejandro

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Finding her voice

Lek grew up in Cambodia Town in Long Beach and moved to downtown L.A. two years ago. After graduating from Cal State Long Beach in 2017, she spent some time trying to find her voice, and what she wanted her artwork to represent.

Tidawhitney Lek is a painter whose work is currently in the Hammer Museum as part of the Made in LA show.

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“I ended up kind of slowly picking apart that I’m female, I'm a Cambodian American. I started picking apart into vulnerable places,” Lek says.

Her parents moved from Cambodia to the United States in 1979 after the Khmer’s Rouge’s genocidal regime fell. Her family had witnessed a great deal of violence, taking on trauma that was passed on to younger generations. As a first-generation American, Lek wanted to better understand her family’s journey and her upbringing. But it was challenging.

“I couldn’t get the conversation going or they just wouldn’t open up,” Lek says. “So when I gave up, I just was like,’you know what? Let me throw this into the painting.’ It really forced out this natural narrative that I’ve been getting to articulate.”

Her big break 

If you go to The Hammer Museum to check out the Made in LA exhibit, you'll see one of her paintings called Refuge. It’s three panels — the left one is of a pink and orange sunset with palm trees, the right one is what looks like the inside of an L.A. apartment, and the middle panel shows girls watching fire and violence envelop a Cambodian landscape.

Tidawhitney Lek, Refuge, 2023

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Lek had to work her way up to get to this moment where she gets to share her family’s story, and 2020 was the year she says everything came together for her.

“It was the pandemic,” Lek says. “It kind of just did this reset button in the circuit.”

Her stories started to resonate with people. “I was just like OK, this is where I’m supposed to be,” Lek says.

She soon after had her in-person debut where she did group shows. Then last year, she had her solo debut. She’s now led solo shows in L.A., London and New York.

“I do hear many times that, like, I need my story to be told,” Lek says.

The process of making a painting 

Lek says all of her paintings start off with a raw canvas. She gives herself three choices: pastel, oil or acrylic paint. She uses different techniques, like watercolor.

Tidawhitney Lek's painting materials in her downtown L.A. studio.

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Victoria Alejandro

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“I start with that to help build the soft ground,” Lek says. “And then start really kind of dissecting and juxtaposing acrylic and oil. Because oil paints kind of erode other materials, they have to be last.”

Relatives is another piece at The Hammer Museum. It’s a picture of central figures — two women — standing on opposite sides of a fence in front of a house. It’s a feeling of watching two women saying goodbye after spending some time together.

Tidawhitney Lek, Relatives, 2023

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Victoria Alejandro

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“It’s actually based off of my baby cousins, and I captured two with a specific pose or posture, and I thought it resonated so well, the kind of air or attitude that's in the household of a lot of women that I was with,” Lek says.

Her identity in her work 

In her work, you can see notes of femininity and a lot of L.A. landscapes and events. She mixes her heritage, culture, and her experiences with L.A. and Long Beach.

"I think I'm just really taking the step to own where I come from, and where I come from was not really like the best,” Lek says.

She adds: “I grew up on Section Eight. It wasn't always an easy neighborhood. But I'm trying to piece it up in beautiful ways because I don't remember it being horrible, I just have memories of it. I have a lot of gratitude for what has been in my life.”

Hear more about Lek’s work in the latest How To LA podcast episode. Three of her paintings are now on display at The Hammer Museum Made in LA exhibit through Dec. 31.

A crew of four moon-bound astronauts will remain on the ground for at least a month after NASA delayed the launch of the Artemis II mission. During critical pre-launch testing Monday, mission managers uncovered a number of issues that prevented the completion of the test.

NASA is now planning a March launch date for the four astronauts — three from the U.S. and one from Canada — on a ten-day mission to circle the moon and return to Earth, traveling farther than any humans have ventured into deep space.

Issues leading to that delay began about an hour into Monday's test, known as the wet dress rehearsal. As the team began fueling the rocket at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, sensors picked up a hydrogen leak. Super-chilled hydrogen is used as the fuel for the massive Space Launch System (SLS) rocket.

Hydrogen is an efficient propellant for rockets — but its molecules are so tiny and light they can escape even the tightest of seals. Launch director Charlie Blackwell-Thompson said they had troubleshooted the initial leak, but when they began to pressurize the tank, another leak surfaced.

"And so as we began that pressurization, we did see that the leak within the cavity came up pretty quick," said Blackwell-Thompson.

(L/R) NASA Associate Administrator Amit Kshatriya, NASA Associate Administrator Lori Glaze, launch director Charlie Blackwell-Thompson, and manager of NASA's Space Launch System Program, John Honeycutt, hold a news conference on the Artemis II mission at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla., on Tuesday.

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Hydrogen leaks plagued testing of NASA's Artemis I mission in 2022. Blackwell-Thompson said lessons learned from that uncrewed flight were utilized for Artemis II, but there's more investigation is needed.

The wet dress rehearsal uncovered other issues — including a problem with the Orion capsule, which will carry the crew to the moon. While no one was on board Monday, teams practiced preparing the spacecraft for its passengers. A valve that pressurizes the vehicle required additional attention and took more time to close the hatch than anticipated.

Teams also uncovered issues with cameras due to cold weather and audio dropouts across communication channels. "As always, safety remains our top priority, for our astronauts, our workforce, our systems and the public," said NASA administrator Jared Isaacman in a post on X, and that NASA will only launch when the agency is ready.

Work now begins to fix the issues. NASA will require another wet dress rehearsal before giving the "GO" to put astronauts on board. "All in all, a very successful day for us on many fronts," said Blackwell-Thompson. "Then, on many others, we got some work we've got to go do."

The earliest launch window for another attempt is March 6. NASA has additional launch opportunities on March 7, 8, 9 and 11.

The crew of NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen were released from quarantine and will remain in Houston, Texas. They'll re-enter quarantine about 14 days ahead of the next launch attempt and make the trip to the Kennedy Space Center six days before liftoff.

Artemis II is testing key systems of the Orion spacecraft, like its maneuverability and life support systems, ahead of the planned Artemis III mission that will take humans to the lunar surface. The Artemis II will mark the first time humans have returned to the moon since the final Apollo lunar mission in 1972.
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A trial got underway Tuesday in a case alleging that Huntington Beach illegally dilutes the power of Latino voters with its at-large election system.

Cities across Orange County and elsewhere in California have faced similar challenges over the past decade. Most have settled out of court by adopting by-district elections, where voters only vote on a city council representative from their area, rather than requiring candidates to run citywide. A notable exception is Santa Monica — the city has been fighting a challenge to its at-large election system in court for nearly 10 years.

Now, Huntington Beach is following suit.

The case was brought by the nonprofit group Southwest Voter Registration Education Project and Victor Valladares, a Huntington Beach resident and Democratic Party activist. It’s being heard by Orange County Superior Court Judge Craig L. Griffin.

The argument against at-large city elections

The plaintiffs allege Latino voters can’t elect a candidate of their choice under the current system, in violation of the California Voting Rights Act. This alleged dilution of Latino voting power, they say, leads to poor representation and negative consequences for the city’s majority-Latino Oak View neighborhood.

“Their needs get ignored,” Kevin Shenkman, the plaintiffs’ lawyer, said during his opening statement Tuesday. “It is a natural result of the at-large election system.”

Latinos make up about 20% of the population in Huntington Beach. Under a draft map of electoral districts drawn up by demographer David Ely, a witness for the plaintiffs, the district that includes the Oak View neighborhood would be 40% Latino. Plaintiffs argued this would give residents more power to elect a city councilmember who represents their interests.

The city’s defense of at-large elections

In their opening argument, lawyers representing Huntington Beach argued that Latinos in Huntington Beach are spread across the city and politically diverse.

The city’s lawyers also argued that recent elections of Latino city council members, including MMA star Tito Ortiz in 2020 and Gracey Van Der Mark in 2022, prove the city’s current at-large election system doesn’t impede Latino residents’ ability to participate in the local political process.

“The system works, it’s not broken, and the evidence will show that at trial,” said Anthony Taylor, one of the attorneys representing Huntington Beach.

The trial is expected to last into next week.

Go deeper

• Why were AI-equipped police cameras installed in this majority Latino Huntington Beach neighborhood?
• Huntington Beach's controversial voter ID law is illegal
• Voting by district gives Latino candidates a boost in Orange County
• District elections mean big governing changes for many California cities

In a week when temperatures are 20 degrees above average in parts of Southern California, the L.A. County Board of Supervisors unanimously approved the county’s first heat action plan.

The plan lays out strategies to achieve three goals in coming decades: cooler outdoor spaces, cooler indoor spaces and better public education about the dangers of heat.

The blueprint, approved Tuesday, comes as L.A. County and the world are experiencing longer, hotter and deadlier heat waves as a result of pollution trapped in the Earth’s atmosphere. It’s one of the only such plans in the region dedicated to extreme heat.

Why it matters

Already, heat is responsible for the deaths of more than 200 people each year in L.A. County, as well as thousands of emergency room visits. Since the 1980s, summer temperatures, particularly in the valleys and inland areas, have risen on average 3 degrees, with expected increases as high as 8 degrees on average in certain areas, such as the Antelope Valley, according to the plan.

A graph from the new L.A. County Heat Action Plan.

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Unless global pollution is dramatically reduced, by 2050, average temperatures in L.A. County are expected to rise nearly 4 degrees. The valleys and inland regions will see the highest heat: The San Gabriel Valley could see the number of extreme heat days above 95 degrees go from 32 a year to 74. But coastal areas won’t be spared: Long Beach could see extreme heat days quadruple, from just four days on average above 95 degrees to 16, according to local projections.

Nights are getting hotter even faster, disrupting sleep and impacting health in ways we don’t yet understand — 41% of L.A. County residents who responded to a survey for the heat action plan reported trouble sleeping on very hot nights.

“We needed to develop an all-of-government framework for dealing with rising temperatures,” said Ali Frazzini, policy director with the county’s sustainability office.

Nights are heating up faster than days as a result of climate change, affecting our sleep and health in ways we don't yet fully understand.

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An invisible threat

The plan includes goals for strategies such as replacing blacktop at schools, installing shade structures, and enforcing renter protections for safe indoor temperatures.

“There wasn't the same level of centralization and systems for responding to and adapting to heat as we see with some of our other hazards,” Frazzini said.

Unlike earthquakes or wildfires, heat is something of an invisible threat, she said — it’s ubiquitous, though experienced in unequal ways, and it doesn’t cause extensive property damage. It’s not confined to certain regions.

Despite being the leading weather-related cause of death in the U.S. and here in Southern California, heat is not officially recognized as a disaster at a state or federal level, which limits funding support for public health interventions. The county hopes the plan will unify its efforts across departments and draw more state and federal funding to protect public health.

Strategies to live in a hotter LA 

The plan builds on four years of work since 2021, when the county released its first climate vulnerability assessment.

“That assessment told us where our problems were and what they were, and this plan now tells us how to address them,” said Rita Kampalath, the county’s chief sustainability officer.

Most of the strategies highlighted in the plan are in progress, though many have faced serious delays. For example, one goal includes adding shade structures to all L.A. County bus stops by 2045 — county leaders have attempted to do this for decades, and progress has been extremely slow. Other goals include greening schools and planting trees in neighborhoods with the least shade. Efforts to green schools have faced stops and starts due to funding challenges and lack of planning, though there is progress. And planting trees where they’re most needed has proved to be a lot more difficult than it may seem.

Despite the challenges of implementing the ideas, V. Kelly Turner, a heat researcher at UCLA who served on an advisory group for the plan, said "one thing the L.A. County heat action plan gets fundamentally right is that it centers people and the everyday ways that heat becomes a disruptor to daily life."

Another unique aspect of the plan, she said, is that it used shade data, not only temperature data, to inform its strategies.

"Few cities around the world are using shade maps to systematically inform heat resilience planning," she said. "So, in that respect, the county's heat action plan is truly a leader."

Below are some selected facts and figures from the plan.

Goals for 2045:

• Install functional shade structures at 100% of L.A. County bus stops. 
• Achieve 20% tree canopy in unincorporated areas. 
• Replace 1,600 acres of pavement at schools and public spaces.
• Enforce new rules that require landlords to keep units below 82 degrees.
• Reduce energy burden for low-income households to 4% of monthly budget.
• Create 30% more county cooling centers for 234 regionwide by 2045, as well as support solar and battery installation at trusted indoor community spaces.