Engaging with art is an opportunity to promote wellbeing, whether it allows us to pause and reflect or to get inspired and energized. With that in mind, LACMA regularly offers programs for visitors to connect with art and exhibitions, but we were delighted to recently open our doors for the inaugural Los Angeles County Employee Wellness, Arts, and Culture Festival on Wednesday, May 8, 2024. Presented by the Los Angeles County Department of Arts and Culture and the Department of Human Resources, it invited L.A. County employees to visit the museum, relax, and connect with their creative side at a day of activities, workshops, and art.
“We cannot underestimate the positive impact of art on our life and wellbeing,” said Lisa M. Garrett, Director of Personnel for the County of Los Angeles. “Today’s event offers us all a chance to be inspired, get creative, make connections, and experience the arts.”
Artist christy roberts berkowitz (lowercase preferred) proposed the idea for the festival during her Creative Strategist residency with the Department of Human Resources, which focused on developing arts-based strategies for employee wellness. The County’s Creative Strategist program, which is administered by the Department of Arts and Culture, places artists in one-year residencies across the County to strategize solutions to complex social challenges.
This celebration of art and wellness welcomed over 1,500 attendees to LACMA, where they enjoyed a variety of creative programs. Outdoors, sound healer Sonia Kreitzer (also known as recording artist Doe Paoro) provided sound baths and meditation. Attendees also enjoyed installations throughout LACMA’s campus, art-making activities like a roving Drawing Cart, and music by DJ Linafornia. Inside the galleries, participants experienced the exhibitions on view, including ED RUSCHA / NOW THEN, Painting in the River of Angels: Judy Baca and The Great Wall, and Vincent Valdez and Ry Cooder: El Chavez, which provide in-depth explorations of Los Angeles past and present. They also took part in self-guided tours, during which they practiced mindfulness and slow-looking while exploring highlights of the Modern Art Galleries, Primal Palm Garden (artist Robert Irwin’s outdoor installation comprising over a hundred palms, cycads, and trees), and more.
Also on view was a selection of art by Los Angeles County employees themselves, who were invited to submit works that explored the theme of light. The resulting selection of 215 pieces, encompassing photography, painting, drawing, collage, and videography, were displayed on screens on the Smidt Welcome Plaza, providing just a sample of the breadth of creativity found throughout the county workforce.
“The concept of ‘light’ was explored in myriad ways, as a figurative element, a symbolic trope, or as a more conceptual construct,” said Claudine Dixon, LACMA Assistant Curator, Prints and Drawings, who reviewed the submissions along with Sandra Williams, Assistant Curator, Art of the Middle East; Nancy Thomas, Senior Deputy Director at LACMA; Abbe Land of the Department of Human Resources; and Creative Strategist christy roberts berkowitz. Dixon said: “I was especially moved by Juan Velazquez's beautiful monochromatic painting Outreach with No Limit, in which the idea of light was two-fold. In addition to the sense of sunlight entering into the space depicted in the image itself, the idea of how the artist sheds light on the overwhelming plight of homelessness is a commanding presence within the painting.”
Velazquez’s painting, along with the rest of the artworks that were on display at LACMA, are presented online in six collections, organized by artist name:
Collection 1: Abel Munoz to Cathereen Lim
Collection 2: Chana Friedman to Eraj Hussain
Collection 3: Eunice Milligan to Karen Shih
Collection 4: Karen Siscoe to Maya Hivale
Collection 5: Michael Fricke to Sandra Richardson
Collection 6: Sara Sierra to Zoraida San Roman
The inaugural Employee Wellness, Arts, and Culture Festival is just one part of a larger vision of the County of Los Angeles—to be a region where everyone has equal access to the arts, and where artists and arts organizations are supported and able to thrive. In a county as culturally diverse and geographically broad as Los Angeles, ensuring that the benefits and opportunities provided by the arts are available and accessible to all residents is crucial, and we look forward to welcoming visitors to the galleries and to our upcoming Art + Wellness programs.