Oct 29 2026
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Art

People, Power and Cultural Equity: State of the Arts Summit examines lasting community benefit of 2028 Games

It is the night before Art for LA’s State of the Arts Summit at the San Gabriel Mission, and it is raining, which is rare in Los Angeles. It has Arts for LA CEO Gustavo Herrera a little concerned, but not enough to dampen his excitement about gathering together 400-plus attendees representing 250 arts and culture organizations: creative workers, independent artists, philanthropic and government leaders and community-based organizations that use arts as a vehicle for change.

Arts for LA is also celebrating its 20th anniversary — two decades of organizing artists and cultural groups across the county.

“Our community is stronger together,” said Herrera. “Bringing the community together has been a core function of Arts for LA for many years. It’s where our creative community in Los Angeles comes together to take stock on what’s happening in our field and to build power. . . .

Read the entire article at Pasadena Weekly.

Oct 29 2026
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Lifestyle

Holiday Cruisin’ : Party on the seas with City Cruises

The night sky was clear, hues of crimson red and rustic orange marked the setting sun and the moon was bright and full. It was the perfect evening to board the Entertainer from Fisherman’s Village for a two-plus hour cruise around in the Marina del Rey Harbor with dinner and drinks, a live DJ and dancing — even a few line dances on the floor for those who happened to know them. One family was celebrating a 50th birthday with 30 of their closest friends, a handful of couples were commemorating their anniversary and two friends from Houston were sightseeing. Now take this spectacular setting on a regular Saturday night in September and add festive decor, a special menu and merriment. The result: City Cruises’ holiday cruises.

“People come to us because they want to do something fun,” explained Amber Cross, City Cruises’ director of sales, “and we get to help them create fun, which is very rewarding to me.”

“We don’t go out into the open ocean,” she added. “Our tagline is, ‘Nobody gets seasick unless it’s self-induced,’ unless they’re hitting that bar too much. We just cruise the harbor.” . . .

Read the entire article at Pasadena Weekly.

Oct 26 2026
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News

Helping in the Heart of Skid Row: Inner City Law Center hosts resource fair for the unhoused

On Oct. 15, around 235 unhoused people and their pets gathered in the Inner City Law Center (ICLC) parking lot for the seventh biannual Skid Row Community Connect Day. In partnership with the Los Angeles Central Providers Collaborative, ICLC invited housing organizations, medical teams, legal advocates and mental health professionals to deliver services to unhoused and low- income Skid Row community members.

The event is part of ICLC’s mission to serve the city’s most vulnerable: extremely low-income families struggling to stay housed in LA. Thirty percent of its clients are homeless, and 48% of its clients last year had annual household incomes under $10,000. In the simplest terms: The nonprofit, poverty law firm helps people who are very precariously housed try to hold on to their housing, and people on the streets try to find a pathway into housing.

UCLA School of Law graduate Nancy Mintie started ICLC in 1980. After moving to the Catholic Worker Soup Kitchen, also known as Hippie Kitchen, in the Skid Row neighborhood, she began providing legal services to people in the area. Cases ranged from eviction and habitability issues to securing benefits. . . .

Read the entire article at LA Downtown News.

Oct 22 2026
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Lifestyle

Engineering a Better World: High school robotics team fundraises for Camp del Corazon

About eight hours after Luke was born via emergency C-section, the nurses noticed that he was turning blue and transferred him to the NICU. At first, the doctors thought it might be an infection, but after some monitoring, it was determined he had a severe heart defect: Tetralogy of Fallot with pulmonary atresia. He was also born without a pulmonary artery — there was no way for blood to get from his heart to his lungs.

Luke (center) started attending Camp del Corazon 7 years ago. He is now 12.

About 14 hours after Luke was born, he was transferred to Children’s Hospital Los Angeles (CHLA), where he stayed in the Cardiothoracic Intensive Care Unit (CTICU) for about 3 1/2 weeks. He underwent his first surgery at 3 days old and another at 5 1/2 months. At age 5, he returned to CHLA for yet another.

“He’s been holding stable, and he’s doing great,” said South Pasadena resident Jodi Reagan, the mother of Luke, now 12, Jack, 9, and Thomas, 7. “He’ll probably need another procedure within the next two or three years.” . . .

Read the entire article at Pasadena Weekly.

Oct 22 2026
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Food

New Drinking Destination: Crudo e Nudo Chef-Owner Brian Bornemann introduces Bar Fortuna

There are a few things that are important to Brian Bornemann, and at the top of that list is eating local. He credits his training, which started in Tuscany at a little place called Osteria del Gatto in Siena, for this unwavering love. He worked for a chef-owner who would make his own pasta, his own olive oil from his own trees and hunt wild boar and venison to bring whole into the kitchen. It inspired him to become the chef-owner he is today, with Crudo e Nudo in 2021 and now Bar Fortuna, an Italian cocktail and wine bar, which opened on Main Street on Oct. 21.

Bar Fortuna Team: Bar Manager Noah Castellanos, Chef-Owner Brian Bornemann, Chef de Cuisine Jose Morales. Photo Credit: Catherine Dzilensk

Crudo e Nudo is the maritime embodiment of eat local. The whole mission, explained Bornemann, is to get people to recognize seafood from their own front yard — what they should be eating instead of seafood from Japan, Mexico or Spain. Bar Fortuna extends this “‘locavore philosophy’ by exclusively using California ingredients,” he said. “Instead of Parmesan and Pecorino, we’re showcasing an incredible Broncha cheese from Petaluma; pastas are made from Tehachapi Grain Project’s Sonora flour and produce comes from the Santa Monica Farmers Market, where I’ve been going since childhood.”

Another dynamic feature of Bar Fortuna’s menu is the butchering of a whole lamb and pig from California ranchers to be featured across a variety of dishes: one day a lamb chop, the next a grilled lamb shoulder and the next a braised lamb ragu on tagliolini. . . .

Read the entire article at The Argonaut.

Oct 19 2026
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Music

Music, Maestro, Please: LA Opera’s new music director opens season with ‘Carmen’

When the curtain — adorned with a newly commissioned 70-foot artwork titled “The Things We Know,” by Los Angeles-based artist Enrique Martínez Celaya — rises at Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, Rihab Chaieb stands seductively at the top of a marble staircase, draped in an intricately patterned black-and-white ball gown, as pairs of flamenco dancers pose, stomp and wave their hands to the orchestral rhythms. She is Carmen: desirable, defiant and driven. Georges Bizet’s “Carmen” has been performed again and again all over the world, but not like this. Bizet’s masterpiece is the first production in LA Opera’s 2026-27 season, and it is the first conducted by LA Opera’s new music director, Domingo Hindoyan. It also happens to be one of his favorites.

“I have many favorites, but one of my favorite operas is what I’m doing now,” said Hindoyan from his office inside Dorothy Chandler Pavilion about 10 days before the first performance of “Carmen,” which opened Oct. 17. “I love the story. I love the music — how it’s put together with the drama. ‘Carmen’ is a very well-known opera, which also makes it a bigger challenge, because everyone knows it.”

Hindoyan is taking the baton from James Conlon, who led LA Opera for 20 years. And like another celebrated maestro, Gustavo Dudamel, who just left LA this year for the New York Philharmonic, Hindoyan also got his start playing the violin in El Sistema, the National Network of Youth and Children’s Orchestras of Venezuela. . . .

Read the entire article at LA Downtown News.

Oct 19 2026
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Lifestyle

You’ve Got a Friend: Paid mentors stick by kids from pre-K to high school graduation

Jorie Das has a personal reason for wanting to make a difference in the lives of children facing great difficulty. As a kid, she spent time in foster care, and a social worker had a profound impact on her life. As the executive director of Friends of the Children – Los Angeles since 2019, she has helped pair children with full-time, paid professional mentors — called Friends — from pre-kindergarten through high school graduation.

Photo by: Chris Mortenson

“A social worker saw things in me that I probably couldn’t see in myself yet,” said Das. “And having an adult like that in my corner shaped me. I know what a difference it makes when there’s an adult who isn’t just managing a case but actually knows you and believes in you and keeps showing up — and that’s ultimately what drew me to Friends of the Children – Los Angeles.”

Das built her career in child welfare working as a foster care advocate before landing at the nation’s first and only long-term, professional mentoring program. . . .

Read the entire article at LA Downtown News.

Oct 15 2026
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Food

Off-the-Beaten-Path Bites: Bower Surf Club offers the unexpected

Within walking distance to Dave Harper’s new Aussie/SoCal-inspired Bower Surf Club are not one, two or three but at least five schools: Village School,New Roads, Little Dolphins, Hill & Dale andWestside Waldorf Elementary and Middle School. That is a lot of parents and caregivers dropping off and picking up their little ones who need a lot of coffee and possibly a cheddar scallion biscuit. As of September 10, when it opened its doors, this is exactly what the Colorado Avenue café in Santa Monica is offering its guests.

Photo by: Wonho Frank Lee

 “Other than Subway, there’s not too much to servicethem, not many cool, aesthetically pleasing restaurants,” said Harper. “I would like to be a breath of freshair in the day of the mum who’s dropping off their kid after a stressful morning, the office worker who wants their morning coffee ritual or needs something for lunch that’s affordable, or someone who wants to have a happy hour drink after work. People in corporate areas are used to that coming with a pretty underwhelmingaesthetic.”

Bower Surf Club is located in a commercial space, Colorado Center, yet it is beautifully designed in white and natural colors and decorated with a variety of root burls, rocks, driftwood and plants from Harper’s personal collection. . . .

Read the entire article at The Argonaut.

Oct 15 2026
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News

Marymount Scholars Program : Large grant expands access to higher education

In August 2022, Marymount California University closed its doors in Rancho Palos Verdes. The following month, its leadership launched Marymount Education Foundation (MEF) to support educational programs and scholarships. Just last month, Loyola Marymount University President Thomas Poon welcomed MEF Chairman of the Board/President Richard Edler, Archbishop of Los Angeles José H. Gomez, MEF Executive Director Robyn Jones and Superintendent of Catholic Schools Paul Escala to celebrate MEF’s largest ever grant — $5.57 million — to LMU’s Catholic High School Promise Program.

The grant will establish the Marymount Scholars Program, which will provide full financial support as well as access to faculty mentorship, career and professional development resources, stipends toward study abroad opportunities and funding for technology, laptops and books to 70-plus local students over the next four years. The students will be selected from qualified senior students from each of six participating high schools: Bishop Conaty-Our Lady of Loretto High School, Bishop Mora Salesian, Cantwell-Sacred Heart of Mary College Prep, Junípero Serra High School, St. Bernard College Prep and St. Pius X-St. Matthias Academy.

On Sept. 30, Poon and Edler sat side by side to sign the agreement, followed by a check presentation by Edler and Jones and a champagne toast. . . .

Read the entire article at The Argonaut.

Oct 12 2026
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Art

Revitalizing Traditional Craft: Kintsugi workshops are part of POJ Studio’s greater mission

Tina Koyama’s culture means a great deal to her. It is why she has made it her life’s work to revitalize traditional Japanese craft by establishing POJ Studio in Japan and the United States, specifically in California. As part of her brand’s mission, POJ Studio is launching its fall series of kintsugi workshops at Sonia Boyajian’s Studio in Los Angeles, adding to its ongoing workshops at the Japanese American Cultural & Community Center (JACCC) in Little Tokyo and Intertrend in Long Beach.

It was Koyama’s mother who first exposed her to traditional crafts and kintsugi, the practice of repairing broken ceramics with lacquer and gold, making the cracks part of the object rather than hiding them.

“When I founded POJ Studio, I didn’t yet know what I wanted to sell,” said Koyama, who is based in Kyoto. “Then kintsugi came back to me. I kept seeing it in U.S. design media, where it was trending, yet there was very little education about what it truly was, how it connected to the traditional craft industry or the fact that the urushi lacquer industry, built on a natural material made from tree sap, was in steep decline.” . . .

Read the entire article at LA Downtown News.

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