Departures is KCET's hyper-local web documentary, community engagement tool and digital literacy program about the cultural history of Los Angeles' neighborhoods.
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YouTube.com/Webstories Arroyo Culture Mural
The Arts and Crafts movement evolved in Highland Park and Pasadena due to the proliferation of artists, intellectuals and entrepreneurs in the areas around the Arroyo Seco. The efforts of community leaders and eccentrics such as Lummis, Judson and Browne combined with those of thinkers inspired by life “on the Arroyo,” such as plein air painter Franz Bischoff and block print maker Frances Gearhart, came together to pioneer one of the first artistic and cultural movements to come out of Los Angeles along with the initial success of motion pictures.
In the Arroyo Culture chapter, we will explore the philosophy, practice and ethos of Arts and Crafts in Highland Park from beginning to ultimate demise. The rise and fall of Arroyo Culture is really the story of Highland Park as a independent municipality. As a prescient article written in the Garvanza paper circa 1930 put it while denouncing the proposed annexation of Highland Park to Los Angeles, big government bureaucracies and priorities could only trump the original community’s goals, a larger urban vision for Los Angeles trampling Highland Park’s grass-roots. As with Venice, annexation would turn out to be the beginning of a cycle of decline from which the area is only just recovering.
In the Arroyo Culture chapter, we will explore the philosophy, practice and ethos of Arts and Crafts in Highland Park from beginning to ultimate demise. The rise and fall of Arroyo Culture is really the story of Highland Park as a independent municipality. As a prescient article written in the Garvanza paper circa 1930 put it while denouncing the proposed annexation of Highland Park to Los Angeles, big government bureaucracies and priorities could only trump the original community’s goals, a larger urban vision for Los Angeles trampling Highland Park’s grass-roots. As with Venice, annexation would turn out to be the beginning of a cycle of decline from which the area is only just recovering.
Index
2 Arroyo Culture:
In 1867, William Lees Judson founded the Colonial Glass Company in Garvanza. Judson, a skilled painter and craftsman, had originally come to the area because he thought the climate might be suitable for a weak constitution.
2 Arroyo Culture:
Plein Air was a style of painting descended from French Impressionism, the French term for "open air" indicating the artist painted outdoors.
2 Arroyo Culture:
In the midst of the Industrial Revolution, a desire for the handmade craftsmanship of wares and decorative items begin to influence design philosophies in Great Britain. This movement spread throughout Europe and then to North America and became what we now know as the Arts and Crafts movement. Southern Californian artists and architects involved in this movement found special forms of inspiration and opportunity along the Arroyo Seco.
2 Arroyo Culture:
Originally, Garvanza was one of the many sectioned plots of the Rancho San Rafael and was mainly a collection of garbanzo bean fields - hence its original name "Garbanzo."
2 Arroyo Culture:
At the turn of the 20th century, Sycamore Grove (known today as Sycamore Grove Park) was its own little town with its own rules. Telling someone you were off to "the Grove" could prompt either knowing winks or horrified gasps, as the area was then a thriving and rowdy red-light district frequented by prostitutes, gamblers, addicts and other creatures of rough, illicit comfort.
2 Arroyo Culture:
Perched on the hills of the Arroyo Seco, the Southwest Museum opened its doors to the public in 1914. It's no exaggeration to say that it was the Getty of its era, and the city celebrated the Southwest Museum's arrival with good reason.
2 Arroyo Culture:
Charles Fletcher Lummis is remembered as a self-made man of action whose life was shaped by a combination of an acute wanderlust and a deep belief in the power of his own two hands. Lummis' passion for Southwestern culture gave voice and identity to the region at a time when the rest of the nation cared little for it and knew even less.
2 Arroyo Culture:
After purchasing two adjacent lots next to the Arroyo Seco, Charles Lummis began the construction of El Alisal - "Place of the Sycamore Trees." Built over a twelve year period ending in 1910, Lummis would construct the entire structure with his own hands using stones gathered from the Arroyo, and the assistance of a few Native American laborers he had trained in carpentry.
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