Moving Pictures, comprising seven unique zoetropes (pronounced ZOH-uh-trohp), celebrates the origin of cinema and Culver City's film studio history. Invented in 1834 by William George Horner, the zoetrope as it later came to be called, uses the persistence of vision principle to create an illusion of movement. Inside the zoetrope's drum is a series of images that can be viewed through the slots incised in the drum's shell. By adjusting the rate of the spin of the drum, the viewer is able to observe an increasingly smooth progression of images. Zoetrope is from the Greek words zoe, "life" and trope, "turn."

Wick Alexander and Robin Brailsford have worked on numerous public art projects located throughout the downtown San Diego Area. Robin Brailsford also completed a public art project for the City of Santa Monica Downtown Transit Mall: River of Life (2000).

Terry Allen's bronze sculpture, Golden Time, depicts a business man kneeling on one knee struggling to balance a clock on his shoulders. The artist intended the sculpture as a metaphor for the struggles the working man faces. Mr. Allen states, "The piece itself also addresses the dignity of work and every working person's struggle, public and private, for and against time...our shared human burden."

Terry Allen is an artist and musician living in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Mr. Allen has created public art projects for the City of Los Angeles (Corporate Head, 1990) and for the University of California San Diego (Trees, 1986).

Postcards from Ballona was intended as a beautification project, and was a joint collaboration between artists Francois Bardol, Lucy Blake-Elahi, and Lori Escalera (together with Culver City Middle School students). The mural includes a film strip and postcards, depicting images of the City's landscape, film studio history, creek wild life, and local vegetation.

Our Best honors the Culver City Police Department's dedication to the community. Culver City landmarks and references to the City's film studio history provide a backdrop to a visual narrative that includes a depiction of police officers helping children.

Francois Bardol is a local artist who has worked on several art projects in the public sphere. He created Laurel and Hardy (1996), a mural for Stellar Hardware.

My Movie: Portraits of My Neighborhood was a community-based public art project which involved local fifth grade students from El Marino Language School, El Rincon School, Farrragut School, La Ballona School, and Linwood Howe School. Carol Bishop, Angela Briggs, Gayle Gale, Candice Gawne, and Richard Godfrey served as artists in-residence to create a "film storyboard mural" with students and teachers.

Each school created six 3' high x 6' wide panels. Five of the six panels were assembled by students as murals for their respective schools. These schools donated their sixth panel to Sony Pictures Entertainment. These are now displayed in the lobby of the Sony Pictures Entertainment Plaza Building.

Homage to La Ballona is a large sundial positioned at 32 degrees, the latitude at which Culver City is located. Artist Lucy Blake-Elahi, (assisted by 6th grade students from Echo Horizon School), created colorful tiles that include references to animals and vegetation that once inhabited the area. These tiles are incorporated in the artwork around the base of the sundial. Quotations representing the diverse languages spoken in Culver City also surround the base of the sculpture. The sundial can be read from the south side in the winter and the north side in the summer.

Lucy Blake-Elahi is an arts educator and Culver City resident. She was a collaborator on two mural projects along Ballona Creek, Postcards from Ballona (1997) and Rivers of the World (1996).

Moshe Brahka and her son Eddie Brahka’s picture, Culver… Is That You? is a composite image of the intersection of Culver Boulevard and Duquesne Avenue. The piece incorporates a daytime and nighttime exposure photos collaged together to create one iconic picture. Ms. Brahka states, “Our concept for this photo lies in this idea that beauty is not only all around us, but usually in the places you least expect.”

Moshe Brahka is a photographer from Israel by way of Hollywood. She has done print work Rolling Stone Magazine and Conde Nast Traveler, contributed to advertising campaigns for Adidas and Motorola and has also photographed a wide array of celebrities.

Duck and Fruits is part of a collection of watercolors and prints on paper donated to the City by the Exceptional Children's Foundation in 1995.

Boulevard is part of a collection of watercolors and prints on paper donated to the City by the Exceptional Children's Foundation in 1995.

Joshua Callaghan's Almost Invisible Boxes are located in and adjacent to Town Plaza in downtown Culver City. The artist conceived of this installation as a continuation of the space that the traffic signal and utility boxes obstructed. Each box is wrapped in vinyl that has images of the surrounding landscape printed on it. While examining the boxes, the viewer becomes an active participant in the setting by engaging in this optical illusion.

Joshua Callaghan has exhibited works in video, sculpture, and photography in the United States and abroad. He lives and works in Los Angeles and recently completed his MFA at the University of California Los Angeles.

Located on the north side of the third floor atrium of the Culver City City Hall, Ed Carpenter's stained glass screens are an abstract representation of a hanging garden. The artist intended the artwork to serve both a functional and artistic purpose -- as a wind barrier and light filter -- and as a visual bridge connecting the upper floors of City Hall's main facade. Dichroic glass (glass that has been fused with various metal oxides) has been incorporated into the design, which lends to the overall sparkle and iridescence of the work.

Ed Carpenter studied at the University of California at Santa Barbara and at UC Berkeley. He is based in Portland, Oregon and has completed many public art projects including Architectural Glass Window (1994) for the City of Los Angeles, and Ojo (1997) for the City of New York.

Singers is part of a collection of watercolors and prints on paper donated to the City by the Exceptional Children's Foundation in 1995.

Three Sheets to the Wind was intended to complement the overall industrial aesthetic design of the building's facade. Triangular sections made of metal mesh representing the sails of ships sit above the roofline. Below these are sections of corrugated metal representing ocean waves.

Andrea Cohen Gehring collaborated with Art Mortimer on Helms Coach Gone A Rye (2002) at the Helms Bakery Complex. Ms. Gehring is a Partner and Design Principal at WWCOT.

Catching a Shade is part of a collection of watercolors and prints on paper donated to the City by the Exceptional Children's Foundation in 1995.

Give Me Your Hand is part of a collection of watercolors and prints on paper donated to the City by the Exceptional Children's Foundation in 1995.

The artist used the natural setting of Carlson Park as a departure point for this design. Tree of Life is a three-sided sculpture that incorporates images of plants, flowers, and various animals into each of the panels.

Dora De Larios has been commissioned for public art projects for the City of Pasadena (Homage to Quetzalcoatl, 1993) and the City of Los Angeles (Elements, 1989).

The late Mary Ann DeVine was commissioned to create four art panels at the Canaan Gardens mausoleum at Hillside Memorial Park and Mortuary. Following the biblical story of Canaan, the panels depict the following images: Jacob wrestling with the Angel, Moses parting the Sea of Reeds, Moses receiving the Ten Commandments, and Aaron before the Temple. The figures are fabricated from bronze and set against a marble and granite background.

Mary Ann DeVine's sculptures are in the collection of the U.S. Library of Congress, the University of California at Los Angeles, and the Long Beach Museum of Art. Ms. DeVine was a recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts grant in 1984. This series at Hillside is one of the artist's last commissions.

Apple Trees is part of a collection of watercolors and prints on paper donated to the City by the Exceptional Children's Foundation in 1995.

It has been observed that this abstract sculptor seems preoccupied with "holding elements in tension, one against another, either suspending or springing them against each other." (William Packer, "Art and Artist.") The title of the work, Echo Echo, references the school's mission which is to educate hearing and hearing-impaired children in an inclusive environment.

Guy Dill is based in Venice, CA, and is represented in such collections as the Museum of Modern Art, New York, and the Guggenheim and Whitney Museum of American Art. Mr. Dill's sculptures are included in the public art collection of the City of Los Angeles and the City of Brea, as well as many private collections.

A Child's Landscape and Untitled are site-specific artworks (art designed for a specific location).  The artworks are interspersed throughout the Willows Community School's campus.  Mounted to the exterior walls of the various buildings, the artwork incorporates West Coast landscape materials, resembling a polychrome quilt.

Laddie John Dill is known as the "archetypal California artist" because of his incorporation of West Coast landscape materials into his artwork. Mr. Dill completed Light Wave (2002) for the Culver City public art program, as well as Untitled (1998) for the City of Santa Monica, and Untitled (1986) for the City of Los Angeles.

Created specifically for the northwest corner of the intersection of Robertson and Washington Boulevards, Light Wave is a three-dimensional painting intended "to capture light and bend it to give the viewer a sense of kinetic energy." The striations in the stainless steel portions of this artwork echo the sense of movement that Light Wave is designed to convey.

Laddie John Dill is often referred to as the "archetypal California artist" because of his use, either in materials or inspiration, of natural elements native to the West Coast.

Culver City Currency employs the symbol of the coin as a classic means of portraiture.  The word "currency" suggests circulation and exchange -- two phenomena characteristic of a shopping center.  For Westfield, Doyle has blended and animated images of Culver City's residents, workers, and landmarks by creating portraits on lenticular coins suspended from a mobile. 

Since ancient times, coins have celebrated cultural heroes and architectural icons.  With this inspiration, Doyle's Culver City Currency gives monumental presence to portraits of ordinary people living and working in Culver City.

The artwork operates at two scales.  When viewed from the entry points to the atrium, the visitor sees the entire mobile.  When seen from the balcony around the space, the visitor is able to examine the individual portraits in greater detail.  The piece offers an invitation to relate to other shoppers within one's line of sight, even oneself, as part of the City's collective picture.   

Flanking the main entryway to the site, Two of Hearts features a pair of bronze half spheres from which emerge mounded discs.

Lori Escalera (lead artist), Lucy Blake-Elahi, and David Farrington, together with various members of Ballona Creek Renaissance, served as the lead team for the Rivers of the World mural project. Students from Culver Park High School assisted with the design, and local community volunteers assisted with painting and installation. The mural project was made possible by a Los Angeles County Proposition "A" Grant, and was intended as a graffiti abatement project. The mural depicts eight scenes representing the eight rivers of the world.

Funded by a Los Angeles County Proposition "A" Grant, this mural project was completed by Culver City High School students, together with Ms. Escalera. Ms. Escalera has organized and participated in other mural projects in Culver City along Ballona Creek.

Created from rolled aluminum, the sculpture adds both figurative and abstract elements to the school's facade.

Tom Farrage, a Californian by birth, studied art and music at Orange Coast College, attended architecture school in Santa Monica and Lugano, Switzerland, at the Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCIArc) where he received a professional degree in 1985.  Specializing in the conceptualization, design development, and fabrication of unique and artistically-demanding projects, he works primarily in metal, but has also constructed projects in wood, plastic, and glass.  His clientele consists mainly of architects and firms as well as artists.  His work has been widely published by leading international art and architecture magazines.   

"The need to create art has followed me through my life.  From the isolated desert where I was raised, through my days as a migrant worker traveling with the harvests through many southwestern states, while attending Orange Coast College, where I majored in art, music, printmaking ,sculpting, and jewelry making.  I was fortunate to attend an architecture school that focused on art as a point of departure, and now as a craftsman and artist." 

Jud Fine's sculpture, Scan, is comprised of two elements -- Nipkow Disk and 525 Scan. Both components reference the evolution of television. Nipkow Disk contains twenty-seven lights arranged in a spiral, representing the holes of the original scanning device that was a fundamental component of mechanical television. 525 Scan includes a stainless steel plate, set in concrete above a curved bench. The plate is etched with 525 scan lines and the names of people who have contributed to the development of television.

Jud Fine is a Professor of Sculpture at the University of Southern California. Mr. Fine has completed public art projects for the City of Los Angeles (Los Angeles Central Library, Maguire Gardens), and the City of Pasadena (Avenue 57 Metro Light Rail Station).

R. M. Fischer's sculpture, Wading Pool, references architectural characteristics of the many art deco era buildings on the adjacent Sony Pictures Entertainment lot, as well as set elements from Frank Capra's 1937 film, Lost Horizons.

R.M. Fischer is a New York based artist who has completed numerous public art projects including, Firefly (1998) for the City of Philadephia, and Bell Street Pier Beacon for the Port of Seattle.

The Lion's Fountain was commissioned by the Culver City Redevelopment Agency as the public art component of the Town Plaza development project. The fountain is comprised of an eight foot tall bronze lion sculpture surrounded by forty lighted jets that shoot streams of water high into the air. The Lion's Fountain has become a focal point of Town Plaza, delighting visitors with its carefree demeanor and dancing water jets.

Douglas Olmsted Freeman, a Minneapolis based sculptor, was awarded this commission, in part because of his success in creating sculptures and designing spaces that invite the viewer to participate, to imagine, and to play. Some of Mr. Freeman's other large-scale installations include: A Spiral of Birds (1991) in St. Paul, MN; The Fountain of the Wind (1994), in Duluth, MN; and Shichifukujin - The Seven Lucky Gods of Japan (1995), and The Seven Animals of Akabane (1996) in Tokyo, Japan.

Although the theme for this art work is inspired by other lions associated with Culver City's movie studio history (MGM's Leo the Lion and the Cowardly Lion from The Wizard of Oz), this lion is neither a representation nor direct interpretation of either of these felines.