So glad I picked up a copy of the Sept. 7 issue of the Los Angeles Downtown News. When I was done reading the front page story, I breathed a sigh of relief. Mystery solved. Now we can pass through the 101 freeway without that thorn on our sides.  I feel enlightened and free now that I know what that weird structure on Grand Avenue is. For the past two years, everytime we drove by it, my husband and I would wrack our brains  trying to figure out what that spiral montrosity could possibly be.

IDEAS FROM OUR BRAINSTORMING SESSIONS

1. It’s a diving board or a contraption for the newest extreme sport
2. It’s an artwork.  Afterall,the Walt Disney Music Hall, the MOCA, the Cathedral of Our Lady of Angels, and the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion are just a few steps away on the same street.
3. Not an artwork. LAUSD (LA Unified School District), which owns the property,  cannot afford an unnecessary and enormous thing like it. They’re currently laying off teachers.
4. It’s a punishment device for students. If the kids are bad, the principal will make them go up to the top and jump down below.(evil laughter)
5. It hides a water pipe inside it. It’s a giant sprinkler in disguise, constructed to fight really big fires.
6. Not a giant sprinkler. Why on earth would a giant sprinkler be spiral?

WHAT I LEARNED

Just newly opened this month, the LAUSD property is called High School No. 9, a High School for the Visual and Performing Arts. It’s divided into four academies: dance, music, theater, and visual art. Its price tag is $232 million.(Whoah!) The spiral thingy with the box on top is indeed a piece of art, a sculpture designed by Wolf D. Prix. When viewed from the top, the spiral looks like a No.9. The box that’s perched at the tip of the structure is supposed to be an events space, but it is unfinished due to budget concerns.

MY THOUGHTS

All this time I’ve been viewing the scuplture from only one vantage point.  That’s why I never fully appreciated it. I should have looked at it from other angles. After having seen different pictures, I think it’s not that bad. It might take a while before I can say that it’s “beautiful”. I need some time to get used to it.

Impressive, yes. It’s amazing how many artistic and architecturally notable buildings and institutions have  congregated on Grand Ave. in downtown LA. This area is virtually a one stop shop for people in search of eye candy.

I am perplexed. LAUSD keeps on building new schools but doesn’t have the money to keep its teachers. In our area alone, I can count four schools that were built within the last four years.There’s another one about to be constructed. What good are these schools if the people who make it work are treated like disposable rags? Today my son told me that his first grade teacher, Ms. Meza, is no longer working at Frank Del Olmo Elementary School. She was laid off. I feel so bad for her. I know how hard she worked. In the third world country where I come from, teachers didn’t earn much, but, even if they were terminating employees right and left, teachers had nothing to fear. They were indispensible. I hope they still are. Sigh. But this is America and their ways are unfamiliar to me.

I wonder how I could get my kids into that school. My son has a flair for dramatics. He has the ability to cry on cue, usually when I put vegetables on his plate. For him, I’m thinking- theater arts. My daughter could go into visual arts. These days, whenever she sees a picture hanging on a wall, she calls my attention saying, “Look, mom! It’s a art!” Plus she likes to draw on our sofa. So just maybe…

Second thought. Two of my siblings are artists. Sometimes I worry about them. Last year when my sister, an aspiring film director, was soliciting additional funding for her independent film, I was so anxious for her. I dreamt my sister quit being an artist because she was starving.  Then she became a salesperson at a mall.  I woke up sobbing. I guess it’s okey if my kids don’t get into that school. I don’t want to have the “starving artist” dream again.

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