Artwork Detail

Mapache City Projects is composed of Sandra de la Loza and Arturo Romo. The two artists with family ties to the Blanchard-Humphries community created an artwork that provides an aesthetic focal point with art elements for a hillside stabilization project at Eastern Avenue Hill. Their artwork is intended to convey the social, cultural and ecological history of the area. The three handcrafted stone sculptures, or steles, are six feet high by two and half feet wide and feature imagery of native vegetation, iconography and stories of the neighborhood. Acknowledging the power of storytelling, the artists hosted an engagement program to bring together residents, local artists and experts in an oral history exchange. Together, participants created a temporary artwork using weaving techniques, mixed media and native plants to reflect a visual story of their neighborhood. Significant memories of the river, pond, wild horses, frogs and the industrial developments that altered the natural ecology of the area and the social history of East LA are reflected in the artwork. Each of the three tablets has a theme: Tablet of the Elements pays homage to the four elements, fire, air, water and earth; Tablet of the Agave provides a historical survey of the area’s inhabitants, flora and fauna and industrialization; and Tablet of the Creation features a tree of life sprouting from the urban grid, referencing the Los Angeles basin. The artists’ design for the hillside also includes a field of agaves and a customized decorative fence. Unfortunately, the stelae were repeatedly vandalized after their installation. To address this issue, in 2023 the Civic Art Division worked with the Internal Services Department and the artists to conserve and move the stelae to the East LA Civic Center. This way, people can still appreciate the stunning artwork while ensuring it remains safe and secure.

Mapache City Projects is composed of artists Sandra de la Loza and Arturo Romo. de la Loza holds an MFA in Photography and a BA in Chicano Studies. Her work has been included in exhibitions and she has served on panels internationally. Romo holds a BFA in painting. Both artists were featured in exhibitions during Pacific Standard Time in 2011: de la Loza, in a solo show, Mural Remix: Chicano Muralism and the Social Sublime at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; and Romo, in Mapping Another L.A.: The Chicano Art Movement a the Fowler Museum at UCLA, Los Angeles.