The mission of the Los Angeles County Department of Arts and Culture is to advance arts, culture, and creativity throughout LA County. We fulfill our mission by providing services and support in areas including grants and technical assistance for nonprofit organizations; professional development opportunities; commissioning civic artworks and managing the County’s civic art collection; implementing countywide arts education initiatives; research and evaluation; career pathways in the creative economy; free community programs; and cross sector creative strategies that address civic issues. This work is framed by the County’s Cultural Equity and Inclusion Initiative and a longstanding commitment to fostering access to the arts.
The renovated facility for the Long Beach Mental Health Center serves over 4,000 clients annually ranging from children, adolescents, families and adults to provide psychiatric, early intervention and clinical services. To further promote the Department of Mental Health’s mission statement of “hope, recovery and well-being,” the LA County Department of Arts and Culture's Civic Art Program developed a curatorial approach that focuses on artworks that provide warmth, contribute to the healing process and reduce stress. The 18 works in the collection are by local artists, with an emphasis on abstract work evoking the California landscape and include artists Betsy Lohrer Hall, Brian Hollister, Margaret Lazzari, Kimiko Miyoshi, Leo Rivas and Ashley Shumaker.
About the Artist:
Margaret Lazzari is a painter based in LA. She is a professor of Painting and Associate Dean at the Roski School of Fine Arts, University of Southern California. In addition to gallery exhibitions of her paintings, she has completed public art commissions for LA Metro and the cities of Pasadena and Santa Monica. For more information, please visit: www.margaretlazzari.com.