The mission of the Los Angeles County Department of Arts and Culture is to advance arts, culture, and creativity throughout LA County. We fulfill our mission by providing services and support in areas including grants and technical assistance for nonprofit organizations; professional development opportunities; commissioning civic artworks and managing the County’s civic art collection; implementing countywide arts education initiatives; research and evaluation; career pathways in the creative economy; free community programs; and cross sector creative strategies that address civic issues. This work is framed by the County’s Cultural Equity and Inclusion Initiative and a longstanding commitment to fostering access to the arts.
Our Shining Stars by artist Jose Antonio Aguirre includes a series of seven individual artworks for the entrances of each building at the Lancaster Animal Shelter. Inspired by shelter animals that have had successful adoptions, each image is surrounded by a contemporary star-burst shape that resembles the Hollywood Walk of Fame. The artwork also includes mosaic medallions in the corridor leading to the facility’s central patio. Fabricated with a combination of Byzantine and Venetian glass mosaic, the process included participation from children, teens, adults and seniors from the Antelope Valley and benefited from additional support from the Fulbright-Garcia Robles Award and the Glass Workshop of UAM-Azcapotzalco (Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana) in Mexico City. The Los Angeles County Department of Animal Care and Control is one of the largest and most progressive animal control agencies in the United States.
About the Artist:
Bi-national artist José Antonio Aguirre earned a MFA from the California Institute of the Arts and a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. As a studio artist, he has participated in numerous solo and group exhibitions. As a public artist, he has executed nearly 30 works in California, Illinois, Texas and Mexico City. Throughout his art career, he has been active as an installation artist, visual arts educator and cultural journalist for Spanish publications in Chicago, Los Angeles, Texas and Mexico. In March 2010 José was awarded the prestigious J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Award to Mexico. Fulbright is the most widely recognized and prestigious international exchange program in the world, supported for more than half a century by the American people through an annual appropriation from the U.S. Congress and by the people of partner nations. José Antonio Aguirre resides in Pasadena, California.
