CSP 58 Art In The Arroyo: Bohemian Cultures Of Northeast Los Angeles

This course will consider a variety of sources from history, sociology, and the arts to explore the origins of L.A.’s original artistic and creative culture in the Arroyo Seco and its contemporary reemergence in the Northeast L.A. art scene. At the turn of the twentieth century, a celebrated and irreverent “Arroyo Culture” of Arts and Crafts architects, designers, printers, and writers came to prominence in Southern California and across the Southwest and the nation. Yet that Northeast Los Angeles artistic bohemia dissipated by mid-century through freeway construction, disinvestment, and white flight. Gradually, the cultures of the Arroyo region dropped out of the larger consciousness. In this class, we will trace the hidden history of the individual makers and arts collectives that flourished even during these years of obscurity, along with the rise of a new, distinctively Latino expressive culture that would break back into the metropolitan consciousness by the 1970s. Faced with new challenges of gentrification and the continually changing cultures of Northeast LA, we will also explore how the Arroyo region continues to shape our contemporary artistic and bohemian creative culture in twenty-first century Los Angeles. In the process, we will connect students with heritage and arts organizations to do field interviews and archival research. History and sociology studies of bohemia and neo-bohemia will help contextualize our explorations of the role of the arts in defining regional identity and as factors in economic development and community life.