Documenting my pocket of Los Angeles
Earlier this month, filmmaker Thom Andersen made an appearance at the Egyptian Theatre after a screening of his seminal documentary “Los Angeles Plays Itself.” Can’t remember the last time I saw his film essay in its 169-minutes entirety, but I was curious to watch it through 2025 eyes. From film critic Kenneth Turan’s review in... Continue Reading →
Remembering the 130th birthday of Buckminster Fuller with a brief account of his Fly's Eye Dome that stood in Pershing Square for the Los Angeles Bicentennial in 1981.
This month, Goodyear celebrated the centennial of the Goodyear Blimp. Los Angeles has so many blimp stories, including one with famous actor Douglas Fairbanks. In writing this, I realized that my dad had his own memories of the Goodyear blimp flying over his South LA neighborhood.
Thanks to the Santa Monica Conservancy, I finally toured through the Los Angeles Herald Examiner Building (now ASU’s Los Angeles campus) designed by Julia Morgan. Since much has already been written about this building, I'm sharing my research about a few other assorted topics related to this historic site.
This year, I made 17 granny squares for the fair’s large-scale crochet project in the Home Arts building. This amazing experience had me wondering about the crochet history of the fair (and Los Angeles).
In March, I had the pleasure of presenting at the symposium for The Ebell Institute for the Study of Women’s History in Los Angeles. It was an honor to present my research about the first National Women's Air Derby (1929) in this historic women's clubhouse built in 1927. Should mention that one of those Powder... Continue Reading →
I’ll never get tired of walking through these LAX mosaic tunnels! One of my favorite sites at LAX! ✈️ The LAX mosaic murals (1961) were designed by Janet Bennett, under the supervision of Charles Kratka, and implemented by tile artist Alfonso Pardiñas. As designer Janet Bennett explained (on Louise Sandhaus' Tumblr site), her idea was... Continue Reading →
Five years ago, I had the unique opportunity to step into the shoes of Tessa Kelso, an 1890s librarian in Los Angeles, as part of the Los Angeles Public Library’s "Historical Portraits Project" video series created by Standard Vision. Recently, the library revisited this project, sharing the video of my Tessa Kelso portrayal (on Facebook,... Continue Reading →
The next time you’re in the Central Library be sure to head up to the Children’s Literature Department to see a handful of paintings and sketches by artist Leo Politi (1908–1996), a children’s book artist known for his whimsical scenes of Los Angeles. Politi painted this particular series to memorialize the people, landmarks and stories... Continue Reading →
This week, I had the pleasure of digging into the delicious history found at the intersection of Southern California's architectural and culinary heritage. To celebrate its sixth season of the Lost LA series, KCET hosted an evening at the historic Bob’s Big Boy in Burbank before screening the Lost LA episode “Fast Food and Car... Continue Reading →
Victoria Bernal 