Tag: san gabriel

In order to find out more about them, the Los Angeles County Department of Arts and Culture is asking the public to send them their personal photos of themselves and their children or grandchildren playing on the sculptures, captioned with memories of a mid-century era when parks intertwined public art, interactivity and a child’s imagination.

“Depending on the response, how many photos we receive, we will have a phase two to determine creative ways to share them with the public,” wrote Laleña Vellanoweth, the county’s civic art conservation and collections manager in a statement released Thursday, Oct. 23.

Erica Rojas was in the park on Friday, Oct. 24 with her husband. They were training their dogs to walk and behave on the trails, when Rojas noticed the theme of ocean life after passing by the Octopus and Two-Headed Dragon sculptures.

“I love any artist that has inspiration from both land and sea,” she said.

The county’s project has two parts: conservation and historical research, Vellanoweth wrote.

The department is bringing on apprentices to comb through the photos, people’s comments and dig out letters and other records for clues on how the sculptures got here and why. They will also digitize and catalog the data. Conservation goals include: upkeep of the outdoor artworks that are subject to wear-and-tear, weather and seismic activity.

The outdoor, interactive artworks were designed by Mexican artist Benjamin Dominguez (1894-1974). He studied art at Academia de Artes Plasticas at the University of Mexico and graduated in 1925. He perfected a centuries-old faux-bois craft, known as “concrete wood” while at the university and used it to create these unique park sculptures.

Dominguez emigrated to the United States at age 62 and was commissioned to make tiger and lion enclosures at a zoo in El Paso, Texas. But he first began building his concrete-and-steel sea creatures at a park in Las Vegas, which was recently bulldozed to make room for a development. All the sculptures were destroyed.

In 1961, Dominguez was commissioned to make the six playground sea creatures for Whittier Narrows park by Frank G. Bonelli, the father of parks and recreation in LA County and a former county supervisor. A nature park in San Dimas bears his name.

Most of what is known about Dominguez was unearthed by Friends of La Laguna, a grass-roots group formed 20 years ago to stop demolition of the artist’s sea sculptures, known as La Laguna, within Vincent Lugo Park in San Gabriel. The group persuaded the City Council to abandon demolition plans and later helped get the park’s sculptures placed on the National Register of Historic Places.

“We noticed that the Dominguez sculptures at Vincent Lugo Park has tons of historical information and wanted to create that type of archive for our sculptures,” wrote Vellanoweth.

The county has consulted with Eloy Zarate, a history professor at Pasadena City College and co-founder of the San Gabriel-based Friends of La Laguna. The group raised $1.1 million to restore the La Laguna playground art, which includes a lighthouse with a slide kids love to go down. As a child, he played on the interactive sculptures in San Gabriel where he grew up, he said.

“We are the ones that brought Benjamin Dominguez to life. We said, ‘Hey, this guy was important,” said Zarate.

He said the six Whittier Narrows sculptures are similar to the ones Dominguez designed in Las Vegas, especially Mother Dragon, her yellow-orange body dotted with blue spikes and surrounded by red-and-white mushrooms.

Zarate has offered to write the nominating papers for the Whittier Narrows artworks so they can be accepted on the National Register of Historic Places.

“That is one of the last things we will do,” he said, noting the 20 years he and his group have given to preserving the artist’s unique playground artworks.

Besides San Gabriel and Whittier Narrows park, the third place where his work is preserved is Atlantis Play Center in a park in Garden Grove, at 13630 Atlantis Way, Zarate said. That park features Sandy Sea Serpent, with its tail winding up a hill that kids slide down. “All these structures are meant to be played on,” Zarate said.

His works in these parks represent “a rare example of handcrafted, mid-century playgrounds, when parks were designed to be creative and interactive rather than standardized,” wrote the Los Angeles Conservancy.

The works at Legg Lake were preserved in 2015 through the support of then L.A. County Supervisor Gloria Molina, according to the inscription on the informational display in front of one of the sculptures. It concludes by saying Dominguez’s works are an example of the contributions made by immigrants to Southern California.

In today’s political climate, in which ICE raids are resulting in the arrest of hundreds of immigrants, including those undocumented who’ve made a living and raised a family in Southern California for decades, the recognition of Dominguez at an L.A. County park is made more meaningful, Zarate said.

He hopes the county in its crowd-sourcing effort will acquire many photos, letters and documents relating to the Whittier Narrows park artworks.

“It is important particularly in today’s environment to understand people who come to this country and work, who give a significant amount to the country they’ve settled in,” Zarate said.

One can’t go into Whittier Narrows park without noticing the iconic serpent, or the octopus, for example, which are closer to the entrance on Santa Anita Avenue and the Pomona (60) Freeway.

“I mean, they are part of the park, and you recognize it,” said Armando Salcido on Friday, Oct. 24. Salcido and a friend were heading to get a closer look at some of Dominguez’s other sculptures scattered within the vast county park. “It is the first time I’ve seen the dragon. It’s really nice.”

To send in your photos, go to: https://form.jotform.com/252605621821148 and fill out the information, click next and you’ll get a page to download your digital photo(s). To see other photos already submitted, go to this dashboard on flickr. 

For questions or for help converting your physical images into digital images or submitting over 10 images, contact Danielle Galván Gomez, civic art registrar, at dgalvangomez@arts.lacounty.gov.

Submission deadline is Dec. 12 at 11:59 p.m. Pacific Standard Time.