La Cienega/Jefferson Station
(Untitled)
Daniel Gonzalez, artist
Estimated completion 2010
A series of delicately carved linoleum prints illustrate the history of the Ballona Creek and the Culver City area. Riders will be greeted by a large gateway arch art panel depicting a pristine Ballona Creek. Seating modules will display images of the landscape with the people native to the area, the Shoshoneans, who later became known as the Gabrielino Indians when the San Gabriel Mission was established. Another panel will represent the Californio period, during which the land was divided into several rancherias, including Rancho Las Cienegas for which La Cienega Boulevard was named.
Other panels will include a changing architecture: brick and wood homes replacing clay adobes, the film industry moving into Culver City with the creek as a backdrop for several movies, and the city’s landmark buildings and unique homes as they appear at present. The Ballona Creek will flow through each art panel, constant and recognizable, visually linking the images across time.
“I would like to retell on the art panels, the history of the peopling of Culver City, the transformation of space into place. I would like to rediscover our past to give us scope of what our present is.”