Presentation and poetry reading on wildfire, community, wilderness, and memory – Sunday, Dec. 8

Kim Abeles and Camp 13 (2018) Valise 7 Nature

Where: Gateway to Nature Center, 130 Paseo de la Plaza, Los Angeles, CA 90012 Located next to Olvera Street and a 9-minute walk from Union Station + Metro

Sunday, December 8, 2019 Free and open to the public

11:30am Cathy Schoonmaker, wildlife biologist for Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation, a unit of the National Park Service, will deliver a presentation about our relationship to forests.

1:00pm A poetry reading will feature six poets reflecting on wildfire, community, wilderness, and memory.

Gloria Enedina Alvarez

Yvonne Estrada

Eric Howard

Beverly Lafontaine

A.K. Toney

Alicia Vogl-Saenz

This presentation and poetry reading is in conjunction with the exhibition, Through Nature’s Lens at Gateway to Nature Center, 130 Paseo de la Plaza, Los Angeles, CA 90012
Exhibition Dates and Hours: September 13 – December 29, 2019 Open Wed – Sunday, 10am – 3pm


About the Exhibition: El Pueblo Historical Monument and El Pueblo Park Association in partnership with Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area, a unit of the National Park Service are pleased to present a mixed media art exhibition at Gateway to Nature Center. Featured in the exhibit are prints created from Andrea Bersaglieri’s highly detailed watercolors of native plants, and Ken Marchionno’s 2’ x 10’ photographs taken in the San Bernardino Mountains and created with a pivot up to 180° and multiple captures. Valises for Camp Ground: Arts, Corrections, and Fire Management in the Santa Monica Mountains are ten small, mixed media travel suitcases created during a long-term collaboration between artist Kim Abeles and the female inmates of Camp 13—a correctional facility in the Santa Monica Mountains for women who are trained and deployed to fight forest fires throughout the region. The valises are used as educational tools at public events by the National Park Service and Los Angeles County Fire Department to teach the public about fire prevention, national forests, and our relationship to nature.