Staff
Jenna Didier, Executive Director
An artist whose site-based work with water and experimental sculptural machines promotes stewardship of ecologies within cities and on public lands. Via community collaborations, she promotes inclusivity, empowering voices and visions that are not commonly foregrounded in public space. Didier founded the nonprofit organization Materials & Applications (M&A), to promote site-based literacy and experimentation in the built environment. Her award winning permanent public artworks inhabit cities along the California coast, including downtown Los Angeles and San Francisco.
Sunday Ballew, Interim Program Coordinator
Kimberly Rice, LA County Arts Commission Intern
Meet the Facilitators
NANCY LYNÉE WOO
Nancy Lynée Woo is a poet, imagination enthusiast, and eco-activist who harbors a wild love for the natural world. Her debut poetry collection is I’d Rather Be Lightning (GASHER Press, 2023). She has also published two chabooks and a poetry-music album. Nancy is a 2023 recipient of the California Creative Corps grant, and is working with LA River Arts to produce ecology-focused poetry and art experiences along the Los Angeles River.
Nancy was a PEN America Emerging Voices Fellow, and has also received fellowships from Artists at Work, Arts Council for Long Beach, California Center for the Book, Idyllwild Writers Week and Literary Women. Her work has been published in The Shore, Tupelo Quarterly, Stirring, Radar Poetry, and others. Her work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net.
Nancy is the founder of the community-based poetry space Surprise the Line. She believes in the power of the arts to bring people together. Her degrees are in sociology and creative writing from UC Santa Cruz and Antioch University LA. Find her cavorting around Long Beach (Tongva land) in California, and on social media @fancifulnance.
ANN WELLMAN
Ann Wellman is the founder and Artistic Director of the Long Beach Community Theater, where she produces and hosts Speak. Easy. - a monthly night of storytelling and community conversation. Ann is a CAC Certified Spiritual Life Coach and recently finished two and half years of Enneagram training with Russ Hudson. The first year earned her an Enneagram Certification in Conscious Living, where she received “Distinguished Honors”. She then went on to complete all hours and requirements for her teaching certification as a Russ Hudson Certified Enneagram Teacher and is currently working on completing her Enneagram Coaching Certification with Dr. Ginger Lapid Bogda.
Ann offers classes, workshops, and retreats in writing, creativity, spirituality, and inner-growth work including: “Finding Your Voice through Creative Writing”, “The Sunday Blues - A Writers’ Table with SOUL”, “Enneagram 101”, and “WEEP - A Creative Grief Group for the Brokenhearted”. She has a BA in Speech Communications and Theatre Arts and has been directing for thirty-three years. Ann's most recent directorial projects include Truth Be Told, The Dream Chest, Silver Bullet - a Rock Opera, Behind the Mask, and the Best of the Best Show! She is thrilled to be back at the Long Beach Playhouse in January 2024, directing Becoming Austin Nation.
As a lifetime teacher and student, Ann loves working with people and helping others to find their voice, recognize their heart's deepest desire, and then bring it to life. She has a passion for the brokenhearted and the loneliness that is pervasive in our world. After doing the work herself, her mission is to help others dive into their shadow to access parts of themselves they may have forgotten or kept hidden. Mining for the gold and exposing the GOLDEN SHADOW is sacred and hard work. She knows it takes COURAGE to show up as our most authentic and True Self, to own our voice, story, feelings, and dreams, and then to stand up and say, “THIS IS ME.” But she also knows that when (if) we do, we just might feel a little less alone, a little less brokenhearted, and a whole lot more connected to ourselves and others.
Coming alongside, collaborating, and helping others SHINE is Ann’s specialty. She is a natural-born encourager and loves to cheer others on!
Imagine the LA River as a Public Art Destination
The passing of Lewis MacAdams (1944–2020), poet, activist and co-founder of Friends of the Los Angeles River, prompted the LA River Public Art Project to create an annual prize in his honor. Launched in spring 2020, the competition is a forum for artists and makers of all kinds to present work that imagines the Los Angeles River as a public art destination.
2021 | Represent the River: Word & Image
Our second annual competition invited artists at all career stages to submit a proposal in the visual, literary or time-based arts. Any site along the fifty-one mile length of the river could be considered. This was an ideas competition; funding and permits were not considered barriers to the proposals.
judges
Betty Avila, Executive Director, Self Help Graphics & Art. Marissa Gonzalez-Kucheck, Cultural Arts Coordinator, City of South Gate. Addy Gonzalez Renteria, Co-Founder and Co-Director, 11:11 A Creative Collective. Diane Matyas, Artist, museum educator, professor of art and LARPAP board member. Rex Weiner, Journalist, editor and board member of Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center.
River Fables by writer Tessa Mauclere, winner of the 2021 prize, connected the animals that inhabit MacAdams’ poems, building them from upcycled local materials, and dramatically siting them along the concrete river banks that are etched with MacAdams’ verses.
One of three honorable mentions, Over the Rainbow, by James Piatt used natural sunlight, river water reflection and mirrors to create a sense of wonder.
Remarkable words were key to the 2021 proposal. In Re: The Los Angeles River a project conceived by Figlynn Morgaine, Melanie Winter and Mary-Linn Hughes—the Rebel Arts Working Group. They compiled over 140 RE–words in dozens of local languages to declare the relevance of the LA River. The giant words rang true and resulted in an honorable mention.
Abbi Drew Naylor’s 2020 Frogtown Amphitheaters offered public access and undulating creative space—atop a water filtration system! A perfect place to eat lunch or see a performance.
Fourteen-year-old Ella Kim was 2021’s emerging artist winner for her interactive installation, The People’s Poems. Kim is a member of WriteGirl, the creative writing and mentoring organization that promotes creativity, critical thinking and leadership skills to empower teen girls.
2020 | Imagine the River as a Public Art Destination
Our inaugural Lewis MacAdams Prize, launched in Covid-19’s first spring, was framed as a “blue-sky” project. The entries would, by necessity, be digital. We wanted to see big dreams—unbound to budget, zoning or permitting.
Anooshey Rahim and Graham Laird Prentice, LA River Flags. Winner of the 2020 Lewis MacAdams Prize.
All artists retain copyright of their original work. All entries, with permission, will be publicly presented.
NATURE ART PLAY
VERDE ARTE JUEGEMOS
Tim Durfee, Installation Design
Monica Nouwens, Photography
Robert Pullman, Lighting
The Course of Empire, 2016
Just eighteen months after forming, the LA River Public Art Project launched its first public event—TEN FEET: Art Meets the River. Since then we have presented and initiated a range of art installations and public events along the river with the intent to elevate the awareness and power of artistic contributions to the river’s descriptive narrative. The duration, scope, and format of LARPAP’s projects are specific to conditions along the river, the history of the arts associated with the river, and community access to the river.
LINK TO 2020 PUBLICATION 2: LA RIVER Publication 2 | 2020
PUBLIC ART PROJECT | 2014–2019
REFLECTIONS: HOW DOES IT FEEL?
Art by Belen Islas
From January - June 2024, LA River Arts collaborated with local poet Nancy Lynée Woo in
“Reflections: How Does It Feel?”, a California Creative Corps project
several months of river sessions at different locations along the la river with Nancy woo culminated in a zine and two ensemble PERFORMANCES:
June 22nd, 2024 6-8pm Richard Lillard Outdoor Classroom on the Studio City Greenway
June 29th, 2024 2-4pm Billie Jean King Library, Long Beach
Co-facilitated by Nancy Woo and Ann Wellman, with direction from Ann Wellman, artistic director of Long Beach Community Theater.
THE VISION:
We all have stories to share and deep feelings about the world around us–we want to invite YOU, the public, to participate in our collaborative arts project. We are inviting the Southern California community to submit creative work for possible inclusion in a printed art ZINE and/or a public PERFORMANCE.
The goal of this project is to showcase creative work from our communities around the topics of: restoration, ecology, healing, climate change, environment, and social justice. We are interested in how our emotions can bridge the difficult terrain that we will explore together - both exterior and interior landscapes. Feel empowered to express your joy, fear, anger, sadness, hope, and emotions that don’t yet have names. We want to know: how does it feel? Your work may be focused around the LA River/ Paayme Paxaayt, but it does not have to be.
We are calling it “Reflections” because our reflection is our connection. The LA River is both a metaphor and a literal indicator of our own health and self-awareness. What do you see when you look into the water? What do we find when we reflect upon our relationship with our environments, ourselves, and each other? We are interested in pieces that explore the connections between the physical land and inner emotional landscapes.
THANK YOU to everyone who submitted your work - and all the RIVER SESSIONS participants who came to our sessions with Nancy Woo, Khayra Mentado, and Ann Wellman January - April 2024!
This activity is funded in part by the California Arts Council, a state agency. Special thanks to the Arts Council for Long Beach for their support.
Fun, discovery and camaraderie fill each day at LA River Arts Camp.
Welcoming ages 5 - 11
Register for one, two or all three weeks:
WEEK ONE July 8 - 12 (Sold Out)
SAVE THE DATE: Sat, July 27th 11am-1pm
Children’s Art Show, Community Band & Family Fun Day (FREE)
Location: 5568 Via Marisol, Los Angeles, CA 90042
CAMP Schedule:
10:00 camper start time (campers can be dropped off as early as 9:30)
12:30 lunch
3:30 camper end time - pick up 3:15-3:30 (campers picked up after 3:30 who are not enrolled in aftercare will be charged the daily aftercare rate).
AfterCare: Supervised care from 3:30 - 5:30pm each day for $150/week.
Financial Aid: Camp is for everyone! Families in need of financial aid please inquire with our Camp Director: camp@lariverarts.org
LA RIVER ARTS Camp at the beautiful and shady Hermon Park along the Arroyo Seco in NELA. Campers explore different ecologies and regenerative art strategies side-by-side with teaching artists to create art in collaboration with Nature, the River and the other humans and more-than-humans at the park.
For more information on the camp, please see below:
Our summer camp headquarters are at Art in the Park, a full-service community arts center that was built in the 1930s. It is a Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs partnership arts site - a unique gem amongst the City of Los Angeles Rec & Parks facilities. It has a shaded veranda, two bathrooms, a music room, a project space and a community space -- and is surrounded by mature sycamores! A large new outdoor play structure is there for supervised bursts of all-out monkey-business during snack times, lunch time and after care.
Camp days will include:
Gathering and connection games as campers arrive and we get to know each other
An excursion to the Arroyo to look for critters, learn native plant names and gather building supplies (salvageable, safe debris)
Cleaning up our river treasures and working together to transform them into art
Learning how to connect things together using minimal tools and biodegradable resources like rattan fibers
Working in small groups to draw and write about what we sense and learn along the river
Creating word banks to draw from for individual poetry books
Drawing our discoveries as a way of close observation - then using these as part of our poetry books
Book-making and assembly
Movement and collective games
Clean-up and settling/ reflecting on our daily discoveries
Pack a lunch, snacks, and don’t forget their water bottle!
QUESTIONS? Please contact camp@lariverarts.org
Have a look at the faces and fun times from our pilot program:
Our pilot Public Art Camp (Summer 2022) supported campers at both Hermon Park and Downey Rec Center creating poetry books, engaging in creative play, and repurposing debris (treasures!) from the River to collaborate on a monumental sculpture held together with non-toxic materials (lashing with rattan, no plastics, etc.) while employing traditional weaving/ lashing techniques. We considered the animal and plant relatives at the parks and built-in habitats for them as we co-created sculptures from river debris.
Campers responded to the prompt: What does it look like to make art that helps Nature?
METHODOLOGY:
In sessions shaped by regional Indigenous Cultural Practioners (Tongva/ Chumash) and led by teaching artists, youth will learn that social and ecological justice go hand-in-hand, how we are all connected, that Los Angeles has been called Tovangaar for thousands of years by its First Peoples, how the river came to be channelized, and that public art can be transformative!
EACH DAY’S ACTIVITIES MAY INCLUDE:
Book and Zine Making! Our curriculum activates youth voices, narratives and perspectives as they write their own poems using river-related word banks. Campers respond with words and drawings to the plants, animals and other discoveries from the Arroyo to make their own books and zines.
New Games! Words and stories from the First People explain the plants and places here forming images in our minds. Campers may embody these names and narratives in games foregrounding our interconnectedness and our place in the landscape; moving, orienteering and improvising with our teaching artists under the sycamores.
Monumental Media! Hands-on skill-building with assemblage, lashing, and knot-tying. Cultivating transferable skills in place making grounded in location and community-based considerations encourages youth to site their work carefully by tracing solar paths, feeling the wind, learning to read where water flows over the land when it rains and establishing the cardinal points at the site as they work together to build a monumental work of art -- repurposing debris the river left behind.
Freeform Exploration! Child-directed unstructured playtime. We believe that kids in Nature will discover fun and the laws of physics with minimal interference from counselors - who stand by to assist and maintain safety, but mainly just stay out of the way of campers’ organic explorations in this safe and fertile environment.
LA THIS WEEK featured our pilot public art camp in summer 2022 - see this short video!
“This is a good program that should be offered throughout all of our parks!”
— Supervisor Hilda Solis
More photos from our pilot program held at both Art in the Park and Downey Rec Center:
Partners and Sponsors
Art in the Park is an arts partner site of the DCA housed in a Parks and Rec Park
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