The Brief

When the opening credits first rolled on Bambi in 1942, moviegoers saw the name “Tyrus Wong” flash by for barely a second, listed simply as a background artist.

They couldn’t have known the film’s dreamlike, mist-filled forest — rendered in soft washes of color, so different from Disney’s earlier, theatrically bright style — sprung from the brush of a Chinese-born artist from L.A.

In Background Artist: The Life and Work of Tyrus Wong, University of Houston film scholar Karen Fang digs into how Wong became one of the first Asian American artists to put a stamp on Hollywood in the 1940s, when the political climate made belonging in U.S. society — much less artistic recognition — an enormous feat.

We also learn how Wong, who died in 2016 at age 106, built a legacy that went far beyond Bambi.

Wong’s post-Disney work as a motion picture illustrator at Warner Bros. lives on in films such as Rebel Without a Cause and The Wild Bunch, where he helped directors visualize some of the most iconic scenes in American cinema.

His greeting cards for companies like Hallmark sold millions, making his work some of the most widely circulated of any Asian American artist of his generation.

The Sunland-Tujunga resident also left a lasting mark on his city, from Chinatown, where he designed the “shy boy” logo for Phoenix Bakery, to Santa Monica, where spectators still recall seeing Wong fly his ornate, handmade kites well into his final years.

Tyrus Wong took commercial clients such as Phoenix Bakery, whose "shy boy" logo designed by Wong still adorns the shop today.

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“Many people knew him only as the kite man of Santa Monica and didn't know anything about all of the other incredible chapters of his life and career,” Fang said.

Talent takes shape in Chinatown

Wong emigrated from China as a child of 9 or 10 and settled in L.A.’s Chinatown with his father during the era of the Chinese Exclusion Act, when immigrants could not become citizens or own land.

Tyrus Wong grew up in L.A. with his father, Look Get.

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While many Chinese men labored in restaurants and laundries, Wong’s father had higher aspirations for his bright but mischievous son, who liked to play hooky. His father, Look Get, became his first formal art teacher, drilling Wong nightly in Chinese calligraphy, with the characters practiced on old newsprint.

Wong was sent to study at Benjamin Franklin Junior High in Pasadena, where teachers were impressed by the posters he made for clubs and dances and urged him to apply to what is now the Otis College of Art and Design, then located near MacArthur Park and known for making scholarships available to promising students.

At the time, some imagined Wong might become a sign painter or go into lettering — already a step up for a Chinese immigrant then — but Otis set him on the path to fine art and, eventually, a commercial career.

Reimagining Bambi's forest

By his late 20s — newly married to Ruth Kim Ng and gaining recognition as a fine artist — Wong joined Disney in a entry-level role as an “in-betweener,” making sketches and supporting senior artists.

On his own time, Tyrus Wong checked out the Felix Salten novel "Bambi" from the L.A. Public Library to develop concept art for the Disney film.

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Meanwhile, Walt Disney, hot off the success of Snow White, was reaching for another milestone with the animated adaptation of the novel Bambi: A Life in the Woods by Austrian author Felix Salten.

But it was proving a challenge to animate a story set entirely among animals.

Listening to the studio chatter, Wong took it upon himself to visit the Los Angeles Public Library downtown and check out Salten’s novel.

“He reads it, and he figures out, ‘My goodness, this is all about landscape. This takes place entirely outdoors,’” Fang said.

Drawing from Chinese landscape painting, he made sample art that prioritized shadow, shade and negative space over strict perspective to suggest distance and mood that would “give the feeling of the forest without painting every leaf and every tree,” Fang said.

The "Two leaves” scene from the novel Bambi created by Tyrus as sample art.

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Wong passed his work to higher-placed friends inside the studio, who got it in front of Walt Disney, who gave an ecstatic green light. Wong was quickly moved out of in-betweening, and all the artists on Bambi were told to follow his style, Fang said.

Art at a time of exclusion

As Wong helped shape an iconic American film, the Chinese Exclusion Act remained in effect — not to be lifted until 1943, a year after Bambi’s release.

Wong could later recall instances of poor treatment by some colleagues, but by and large, the creative communities Wong moved through starting at Otis cared about what artists brought to their work rather than their background, Fang said.

But for all of Wong’s outsized impact on Disney’s pet project, he never met the studio head as he recounted in Pamela Tom's 2015 documentary Tyrus.

He would last just three years at Disney, laid off with many other members of the animation crew after a 1941 labor strike, with a year of Bambi still to go.

Wong’s recognition for Bambi wouldn’t come until the last decades of his life. He was in his 90s when he was named a Disney Legend in 2001.

At the award ceremony, Wong took Roy E. Disney’s hand and remarked how he’d never had the opportunity to shake his uncle Walt’s.

Busy at Warner Bros. — and beyond

Tyrus Wong painted a dragon mural in Chinatown's Central Plaza.

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After getting laid off from Disney and needing to support his family, Wong moved over to Warner Bros., where he spent nearly three decades as a motion picture illustrator, helping directors shape the look of their films through prop art and concept images.

He worked on dozens of films, spanning genres from westerns to Doris Day musicals.

What made Wong invaluable, Fang says, was his speed. Used to working as quickly as watercolor dries, Wong’s brush could lay down a lot of information fast. Art directors requested him, while some collectors sought out his sketch work as pieces of art in their own right.

As he worked in Hollywood, Wong continued exhibiting as a fine artist. He designed a popular line of ceramics and created best-selling greeting cards for Hallmark and California Artists.

Wong's single best-selling Christmas card “The Shepherd” for California Artists sold over a million copies.

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His portfolio included Christmas cards with imagery of decorated trees, presents and angels, rendered in his unmistakable brush style, sometimes with Asian features.

“It's Asian American before the term,” Fang said. “It's explicitly bicultural. This was always the most sort of fascinating instance of an American celebration of its multicultural heritage.”

Unlike other fine artists, Wong didn’t shy away from commercial work. As Fang puts it, there was a pragmatism to his choices as an immigrant and a refreshing lack of snobbery informed by the Chinese art tradition, where works on paper don’t rank below below oil on canvas as in the West.

The Kite Man of Santa Monica

Even as he made his mark nationally through his commercial endeavors, Wong also had a creative impact locally.

He painted murals and artwork throughout Chinatown, most famously the “shy boy” logo that still adorns Phoenix Bakery to this day.

Later in life, Wong would turn the coastal sky above Santa Monica into a moving canvas for his handmade kites.

Tyrus Wong made art across L.A., from Hollywood to Chinatown and Santa Monica, where he used to fly his handmade kites before admiring spectators.

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“He starts in his retirement, and he has nothing to do, and his wife sort of says, ‘Well, go fly a kite,’” Fang said. “And he thinks, ‘I used to fly kites when I was a kid. Kites are a Chinese invention.’”

Wong hand-built kites from bamboo and cane — flocks of birds, pandas with moving limbs and hundred-segment centipedes that would require multiple helpers.

His kite-flying became a regular event at the same location on Santa Monica Beach, knitting together a community of family, like his three daughters, regulars and passersby.

Wong kept at it well into his final years, Fang said.

In one documentary encounter from his 90s, the filmmaker arrived expecting to find an elderly man in a chair — only to see Wong racing past his crew on the sand.

Topline:

The backstory: Once a year, dozens of sound artists converge on the hill with views of the harbor below to perform their audio art, which can range from serene to “beautifully weird.”

What to expect: This year includes a performer bending a bar of tin with his bare hands to get it to emit what’s called a "tin cry" and synthesizer-based soundscapes that take inspiration from both the ocean and the industrial space below.

When to go: Soundpedro is free and lasts from 7-10 p.m. Saturday.

More info at the Soundpedro website.

You may know about Union Station as an L.A. landmark or as a transportation hub — but how much do you know about its rich architectural history?

To foster that interest and knowledge, Metro created a series of public tours of the station this spring.

“There's so much that you might just walk by without really having the opportunity to delve deeply into,” said Zipporah Lax Yamamoto, deputy executive officer of Metro’s art program. “[The tours are] a really wonderful opportunity to be able to spend time with the station, learn more about the historic landmark, which belongs to all of us.”

Union Station in Los Angeles

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Architectural style

It’s called Union Station because when it opened in 1939, it connected the Southern Pacific and Union Pacific railroads with the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe railway.

While it was designed by father-and-son team Donald and John Parkinson, the architects who gave us L.A. City Hall, its style is very different. Union Station’s interior and exterior mixes art deco, Spanish colonial and other styles into a hybrid dubbed Mission Moderne.

As you begin the tour, entering from Alameda Street, tour guides ask you to look up at the decorative elements in the high ceilings. The beams and geometric patterns may look like wood — but they’re actually just painted to look that way.

A community destroyed by development

Along the way, the tour gives background on pieces created more than 30 years ago. These include "City of Dreams/River of History" by artists May Sun and Richard Wyatt in 1995. Sun’s piece uses remnants of the Chinese American homes torn down to build the station, a reference to the high price that community paid for this building’s construction.

Detail from "City of Dreams/River of History," created by artists May Sun and Richard Wyatt at Union Station.

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“It was an enormous price. Chinatown ceased to exist in this area. … The families that lived here during that time are still around and maintain archives of that time period and the original Chinatown here, and we've worked with those families to have those objects on display,” Lax Yamamoto said.

Meanwhile, Wyatt’s large-scale mural includes the face of a Chinese man, along with nine other people of different races, ethnicities and ages; a nod to the diversity of the city since its founding in the late 1700s.

There are also stops to see new art installed for the World Cup.

A mural by Richard Wyatt at Union Station

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There are three tours left in the series but the RSVPs have reached their maximum; however, Lax Yamamoto said Metro will decide whether to continue them based on what people have thought about the tours.

Meanwhile, Union Station is set to swell with people in the next couple of months as L.A. hosts World Cup games. The station is the site of an official FIFA-sponsored Fan Zone from June 25-28.

When I first came to the states many years ago, if I’d mentioned Arsenal, people would have thought I was referring to the U.S. military or something. But all that has changed. You can now watch U.K. premier league games in sports bars, most kids play soccer, and Ted Lasso is must-watch TV.

To which I say — welcome. We English are proud of the fact that soccer began with us more than 150 years ago. And every World Cup, we think, surely this will be the year that the trophy returns home — the year that we’ll win!

Queen Elizabeth II awarding the Jules Rimet World Cup Trophy to Bobby Moore after England won the 1966 World Cup final at Wembley.

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I mean it did happen … once… back in 1966. It’s such a long time ago the game was televised in black and white and shillings were still being used. My mother was nine months pregnant with my brother, and got so excited jumping up and down she went into labor and had him the next day. World Cup Willie they called him. Actually his name is David, but never mind.

Since then, every four years everyone in the U.K. watches the games with bated breath. And then something stupid will happen, and we’ll lose, like that time in 1998 when David Beckham (who played for England before he came to L.A. Galaxy) lost his temper and was sent off, and we’ll sit there, gloomy and despondent. I know because I was there in my friend’s living room in London, gloomy and despondent, thinking just once, just once, maybe could we please have a win?

David Beckham's infamous 1998 red card in the England vs. Argentina game.

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The last World Cup, I went to Ye Olde Kings Head in Santa Monica to watch England play. At 7 a.m. it was full of people already on their third pint of beer. And when the team got through to the next round, the gentle men of England ran outside the pub, whipped off their shirts and started weaving through traffic, singing football chants and acting like hooligans. I really couldn’t decide if I was embarrassed or if it felt like home.

Anyway, this time, since I’m now an American citizen, it’s in my contract that I need to support Team USA. I’m a dual citizen, though, so I’ll also be cheering for England. If by any chance Team USA and England play each other, my two selves will be watching, with a cup of tea in one hand, and a cold brewski in the other, and the polarities will explode, or something. But what will probably happen is that both teams will be eclipsed by Brazil or France playing the beautiful game… beautifully. Cheers.

Stereotypes die hard. Los Angeles actually has a massive public transport system serving the region, which boasts the world's longest light rail line in the form of the 58-mile long Line A (or for old-timers, the Blue line) and tons of buses.

But if you opt to engage in the gladiator sport that is L.A. driving — a reminder you're going to need to park that thing too.

Here's where we come in.

Curb parking

No surprise, our curbs are painted in different colors with different restrictions.

Heads up: Red, White and Blue curb regulations are in effect 24/7, unless otherwise noted. And additional restrictions could apply if posted on a sign, according to the Los Angeles Department of Transportation.

Red Curbs — Nope

• No stopping, parking or standing 
• Doesn't matter if there's a driver or passenger inside the car

Yellow Curbs — Depends

• For commercial loading only
• Vehicles with a commercial license plate can park here, but only if they are actively loading or unloading stuff, for a maximum of 30 minutes
• Restrictions are in effect Monday through Saturday 7:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. unless otherwise posted on signs
  
  • That means you can park in yellow zones after 6:00 p.m. with no restrictions, unless otherwise noted
• Vehicles without a commercial license plate may load and unload passengers or baggage, for a maximum of 5 minutes

White Curbs — You gotta get going fast

• Passenger loading only for a maximum of 5 minutes

Blue Curbs (Accessible Parking Zones) — If you have the placard

Those famous 'clashing' L.A. parking signs

Before we move on to other facets of parking in Los Angeles. We want to take a moment to address a persistent complaint about confusing parking signs that are often clustered together.

When you encounter this phenomenon, we suggest patience. You don't need a degree in math, probably just a pen and paper.

For the sign in the video, here's when you can and cannot park (we think):

• No parking on Mondays between 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. because of street cleaning
  
  • all other days you can park between 10 a.m. and 1 p.m., but please be aware there's a 2 hour parking limit
• Every night, you can stop your vehicle for 10 minutes only for passenger loading between 10 p.m. to 3 a.m.
  
  • If the curb is not white, then you can park outside of the 10 p.m. to 3 a.m. window without that restriction
• You can park for 2 hours:
  
  • Between Tuesdays and Saturdays between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m.
  • But remember on Mondays, parking is prohibited from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. because of street cleaning
  • On Sunday, you can park for 2 hours between 11 a.m. and 8 p.m.

Heads up: When in doubt, find somewhere else to park.

Meter parking

LADOT says it operates some 38,000 parking meters in the city. Sometimes it feels as if there are as many meter enforcement people out there.

There are different ways to pay — coins, credit cards, and via text or an app at a number of meters.

Heads up: If a meter is broken, meaning it cannot accept coins or a credit card, then you can only park for free up to the posted time limit.

Other no-no's

Here are several other no parking rules, pulled from this list from LADOT

• In alleys, except for to unload things or passengers
• Within 15 feet of a fire station driveway or fire hydrant
• No double parking
• In a center median strip, unless signs indicate otherwise

Parking on a federal holiday

Certain city parking regulations are not enforced on national holidays. They are enforced on state holidays.

• Time Limit
• Parking meters
• No Parking with specified days and times only
• No stopping with specified days and times only
• Street sweeping (also not enforced the day after Thanksgiving and after Farmworkers Day)

If a national holiday falls on a Saturday it will be observed by the city on a Friday. If it falls on a Sunday it will be observed by the city on a Monday. Parking restrictions are not enforced on both the holiday and the observed holiday.