Exploring the people, places & culture of greater LA
The legendary design team of Charles and Ray Eames is commonly associated with classic mid-century modern furniture produced using innovative production methods and materials such as molded plywood, fiberglass, plastic resin and wire mesh. What many don’t realize, however, is the breadth of their creative passions and the degree to which their personal lives and influence left an indelible mark on so many other design disciplines.
In 1973, artist Judy Chicago, graphic designer Sheila Levrant de Bretteville and art historian Arlene Raven founded The Woman’s Building in Los Angeles, one of the feminist art movement’s major centers of activity in the 1970’s. Out of this hotbed of innovation emerged the L.A. Women’s Video Center (LAWVC), which was cofounded at the Woman’s Building in 1976 by Annette Hunt, Nancy Angelo, and Candace Compton. Jerri Allyn joined the Center the following year.
I recently found a great web site called the Big Map Blog that specializes in – you guessed it – maps. It’s run by Paul Fehler, a St. Louis, MO based documentary film producer and sign-maker who studied cartography and geographic information science in college and, not surprisingly, loves maps.
“On October 24, 1962, at the height of the Cuban missile crisis, the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner reported that “hundreds of worried citizens were calling police today asking the location of public fall-out shelters, fearful of a Russian nuclear attack.” The very next day city officials obliged panicked Angelenos with a list of the 300 shelters that they could choose to die in should the opportunity arise.”
Once again USC will host the Archives Bazaar, a daylong event that offers Los Angeles history buffs, Californiana enthusiasts, and academics the opportunity to learn about new information sources and research methods, exchange ideas, share new findings, and celebrate their passion for the city’s local history. The event is presented by LA as Subject, an association “dedicated to preserving and improving access to archives and collections that document the history of Los Angeles’ diverse peoples, languages, cultures, and geography.”
As a longtime center of the film industry, Los Angeles has served as backdrop and central character in countless movies. This rich celluloid history helps us understand what Los Angeles and its environs were like in decades past.
As LA Times Art Critic Christopher Knight pointed out in a recent article, “…retrospective knowledge [of the early years of post-World War II art in Los Angeles] is broad but shallow, a surface barely scratched.” Recognizing the dearth of knowledge and understanding of this formative period in the city’s cultural development, the Getty Foundation and the Getty Research Institute set out to uncover, document and reclaim the historical record of art in Southern California.
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