How do you define art?

Wikipedia defines Art as “the process or product of deliberately arranging elements in a way that appeals to the senses or emotions.”

Art is generally accepted as painting, drawing, music, dance, film, television, drama, writing, poetry, photography–but the list can be considered in a much larger context. Donald Trump wrote about the “Art of the Deal.” An athlete at the pinnacle of his or her talents, is considered to perform in a Zen and artistic like manner. What about Fashion—many consider that art. A designer or graphic professional falls into the artistic category, as is a typographer, an architect, or a chef.

So then we can all hopefully agree that art is a multi-faceted and multi-dimensional endeavor as much as it is a definition.

Which leads to our project and story: Los Angeles has no—nor ever has had–a city wide comprehensive interactive, photographic, and mapped public art database.

Travelin’ Local’s Mapping Los Angeles Art Public Art

“MLAPA” –Travelin’ Local will provide it here and now, including, in as much as known, the index of the when and who provided the accomplishments. For us–Art is statues. Art is architecture. Art is murals. Art is fountains. Art is business. And art is even commercial.

The Arts are for public appreciation and consumption

Nobody has embarked on this journey nor submitted this type of project for completion let alone having it fully documented, catalogued, photographed and mapped. We’ll be using all available resources ranging from the University of Southern California, the Smithsonian, to SPARC or from you, our readers. Our mission is to seek, find, document, and show you Los Angeles’ very important and broad-based public cultural infrastructure of public art.

Celebrate Travelin’ Local’s Mapping Los Angeles Art Public Art Project

For at least a half dozen reasons:

1. Art is meant to be looked at and enjoyed, but if you don’t know where it is, how can you enjoy it?

2. Although many public art projects have been commissioned throughout the years–including Murals–many have fallen on hard times. For various reasons we won’t go into, many public art displays have disappeared, been reconfigured, disfigured, and so on, but even when you do see a Mural or Public Art project–do you really “see” them? We’ll give you the tools to rediscover its beauty and ubiquity.

3. Art is disappearing. Even as I went out to gather information for this first MLAPA project, I discovered a mural which had previously been on the side of a building, only to discover that the building had been torn down.

4. Public art is unique in that it has to withstand the elements–rain, sun, smog, people, animals, birds, and the test of time all play into its beauty and physicality.

5. Because you asked for it. This idea was provoked and suggested by one of Travelin’ Local’s regular readers (@amirmasud). Immediately I fell in love with the idea as soon as he brought up the concept.

6. Nobody has ever done it—we’ve got to climb that mountain.

Where you can see Travelin’ Local’s Los Angeles Art Project Maps

Incrementally our maps will expand; in the meantime, click on each of the little cameras to glimpse and enjoy our city Art Project because we know that a year’s wait until its completed is too long a time for you not to enjoy its progress:

View Mapping LA Public Art (MLAPA) in a larger map

Follow us for this important and meaningful journey as we traverse and travel the city looking and finding great art. Feel free to follow me on Twitter, or better yet, subscribe to our RSS feed.

And we will keep you up-to-date on all the latest news about the project as well–with over 600 documented public art projects in LA alone, it will take a while to visit all of them, plus all subsequent public art developments and installations around LA–including graffiti, movie, commercially sponsored and architectural public displays of aesthetic work, not to mention the latest of the public art happenings as they occur.

I’m very excited about this project, because it’s another way to highlight all the great things about Travelin’ Local in Los Angeles.