Historic Lectures and Tours
Topics relevant to the Rancho or
Hacienda, including stories of the Land and glimpses into the lives and
works of former residents of the property.
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Hacienda's South Loggia with Rare Encaustic Tile
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LECTURES: Check Calendar for Details
For events at the Mojica Hacienda, La Senora's Season typically
runs from mid May through September. During the colder months from
October - April, we plan unusual field trips, the larger of which are
announced via e-mail. All activities are posted to the Calendar but
there are some special very small group trips we arrange for our Patron
Members --details on how to reserve for those events show up only on the
Patron Level Members web page which requires the password to sign in.
Offsite: Tiles of the 1930s -Topanga Canyon or Ohai
June- Exact date and location to be announced
Randy Young, Pacific Palisades Historian presented the highly acclaimed research project "The Chatauqua Movement" addressing the foundations of this middle class cultural education movement which was responsible for the formation of all of Southern California's Beach Cities having piers and amusement/conference centers. The local leaders of the Chautaqua chose to build the city in which their own families would live, out of sight of the ocean in a quiet setting now known as Pacific Palisades. This popular Lecture has been given twice at La Senora and it is accompanied by exquisite slides of this remarkable venture.
Event : History of the Chautauqua Movement
June- Exact date and location to be announced
Our
neighborhood is blessed with local historians of note.
Randy Young's most recent publication, the story of the Chautauqua
movement has been limited to 35 sponsoring libraries and to La Senora's
archives. Join us as they give the wonderful slide show and lecture
documenting the movement that so changed our beach communities. RESERVE
EARLY as last year's lecture sold out right away!
Event: Offsite to Carlsbad
August- Exact date and location to be announced
Join
La Senora members on our annual trip to visit the ranch of Leo
Carrillo. In addition to his fame as a movie and TV star and his years
as Grand Marshall of the Santa Barbara Fiesta, Leo was also our Canyon
resident,friend to all of the owners of our Hacienda and a relative of
the Rancho descendants. His Ranch in Carlsbad, now owned by the City of
Carlsbad, is truly a 'step back in time' transporting you to what a
Rancho of yore felt like to those living on the Rancho.
2011 Lectures and Tours - Recently Completed
January 22, 2011 - See Film for the lecture and screening of the Will Rogers documentary in La Senora's Teatro.
February 5, 2011 - Buena Vista - California Heritage Museum
A
small group of 12 La Senora guests spent the afternoon at the
California Heritage Museum having a private, and very intimate tour of a
remarkable assemblage of watercolors created by California artists who
journeyed to Mexico to live and paint in the 1930s-50s. Guided with the
expertise one can only acquire from a first-hand knowledge of the
styles, Carol taught us the finer points of dry and wet brush
techniques. A captivating thought was introduced within the first few
minutes of entering the galleries......"At the end of this tour, you
will be asked which painting you would take home ..if you could...and
why you picked that painting." This, of course intensified the already
high level attention we were paying to the subject matter, technique and
overall aesthetic of each painting. At closing time, it was difficult
to walk out the door leaving 'our personal painting' behind.
February 15, 2011 - Rancho Cordillero del Norte - The
noted musicologist and violinist Elizabeth Waldo provided our small
Patron group with a luncheon in the dining room of the restored
hacienda. The highlight of this visit was the rare opportunity to visit
the Archives of her late husband Carl Dentzel (one of the Founders of
the SW Museum). Carl, Elizabeth and their now adult son Paul Dentzel
have been avid collectors of books, paintings, and memorabilia of Mexico
and the SW. An entire room is devoted to sliding screens filled with
paintings; the library is floor to high ceiling. Paul Dentzel gave us
background on the archives and La Senora was invited to do research
using these precious materials. Both Elizabeth Waldo and Paul Dentzel
are active Patron level members of La Senora, particularly for those
events that have historic music performances from the periods of history
and locals in which their own lifetimes of research are centered.
April 2, 2011: Will Roger Museum
3:00
p.m. This small group tour is a companion piece to the January 22nd
Documentary film screenings of the Will Rogers Documentary. On
Saturday, April 2nd, La Senora will receive a private tour of the Ranch
House museum by Michael Allan, the State Parks Ranger who has for so
many years immersed himself in the lore of Will Rogers, the Ranch, the
polo field and the visitors Will entertained there. At the time Will
established his polo field (so important to him that he graded for it
before he started construction on his Ranch house) there were 35 polo
fields in the Los Angeles area. Today only this one remains. There is a
very strong tie-in between the Mojica Hacienda under the ownership of
the Loos Family, where Will Rogers was a guest and friend of Anita Loos.
Her circle of friends overlapped extensively with his, particularly
when it came to those who played polo.
May 13, 2011 - Exploration & Discovery in the Cemetery
During
day 1 of this weekend event - Our annual elementary school History of
Our Neighborhood event will expand this year to include not only Canyon
School, but also Marquez School as well as the Earth Sciences class of
the George Washington High School. Dean Goodman, Cotsen Research
Associate and head of the Geoarcheological Lab, will demonstrate
non-invasive uses of technology via ground penetrating radar to discover
burials and other subsurface structures. The Fowler Museum's team will
be led by Wendy Teeter, Curator, teaching about archeology and
anthropology. Teri Brewer, who grew up in this Canyon, is a La Senora
Fellow and a Cotsen Research Associate who will discuss the Cultural
Heritage Landscape.
2010 Lectures & Tours
The
La Senora Geo-Archeological Collaborative wins coveted statewide
award: The Governor's Historic Preservation Award (See April 22-23,
2010 for seminars on this research project.)
The
Governor's award recognizes outstanding achievements
in preserving connections to California's cultural and architectural
legacies. Our 1839 Pascual Marquez Family Cemetery Project embodies a
site and objects that provide a tangible link to the people, events, and
patterns of history that shaped California's growth and development.
The Awards Jury, described the La Senora research project as
“One
of the most innovative, integrative and educational –-in the
broadest sense of the term – research projects I’ve come across in my
30+ years in Historic Preservation.”
La
Senora brought together the Cotsen Institute of Archeology with Dean
Goodman and Brian Damiata and GAL’s state of the art archeology, science
and technology for a geo-archeological project incorporating early
1900s photography; Alta California Family oral histories; 60 fourth
grade “Research Team Members” from Canyon Charter Elementary School and
graduate students/professors from the Getty/UCLA and USC Conservation
Programs, opening the 1839 Marquez Family Cemetery to exploration,
documentation and education. Donations from Rob and Colleen McAndrews
Wood and the Squid and Squash Foundation of Santa Monica made this
Project possible. The Governor’s 2009 Historic Conservation Award was
made to the Collaboration of: La Senora Research Institute, UCLA’s
Cotsen Institute of Archeology and The GeoArcheological Laboratory.
April 10, 2010 Offsite Event: The Getty Villas "Art of an Empire: Aztec Culture" - Co-Curator, Dr. John Pohl.
In honor of the 200th Anniversary of Mexico's Declaration of
Independence, a truly remarkable exhibition has been mounted at the
Getty Villa with the full assistance of the Mexican government. In
addition to sending some of the most famous pieces of Aztec
archeological and anthropological pieces, Dr. Pohl explained to us the
significance behind the many new works that arrived for exhibition,
having recently been discovered in current digs in Mexico City. Even
our 'students of Mexican Culture" came away impressed by the shifts in
understanding of objects today versus the accepted scholarship wisdom of
even a few years ago. Dr. Pohl's guided tour and informative lecture
was followed by a group dinner with lively discussion before our return
to the Villa's concert hall for the Sones de Mexico concert.
April 11, 2010 Offsite Event: UCLA Campus Haines Hall 352 As
part of La Senora's collaboration with UCLA's Cotsen Institute of
Archeology, our members ahave been invited to participate in the Monday
Lecture Series. This initial lecture addressed the problems of
sustaining large, increasingly complex societies, a topic of urgent
priority in our own times.
April 17, 2010 Offsite Event The Autrey Museum of the West: How Women Made the West with guest lecturer Lisa See This
Autrey exhibition dealt with the 'forgotten West". We all know the
stories of the heroic men who settled the West -- but what about the
women? Not the brave Pioneer Women who came with their families in
Covered Wagons -- the women who came alone or wound up alone and stayed
to create a significant spot for themselves in this new civilization.
La Senora Friend, Lisa See, joined our group for lunch on the museum
terrace before we adjourned to the lecture hall for her talk which
included not just 'the lost stories' and how women's stories were
forgotten, but also dealt with how to find the 'lost stories' in your
own family's background. ...an interesting, thought provoking and
motivating lecture.
April 22-23, 2010: Exploring Santa Monica Canyon's Cultural Heritage:
This two-day Seminar started with a day of presentations on the
geo-archeological findings of our collaborative project with The Cotsen
Institute of Archeology and GAL. This is the Collaborative and the
Project on the Pascual Marquez Family Cemetery that won the Governor's
Award for Historic Preservation for 2009. The full daily schedule of
lectures and exploration activities can be found on our calendar for
these dates in April 2010. While lectures on April 22 focused on the
award-winning Cemetery Project, the program on April 23 broadened from
archeology and geophysics to ethnographic and anthropological
presentations on the history of Santa Monica Canyon, which is of course
the history of Rancho Boca Santa Monica upon which Santa Monica's
founding family in 1839 established the first adobe home. But it's also
the history of the Tongva people whose village lay at the foot of Santa
Monica Canyon. The good fortune of our historical journey At the end
of a stimulating two days of presentations we had lunch under the trees
in Temescal and were led by Amy Lethbridge on a walking tour. A
terrific way to end the Seminar.
May 15, 2010 Offsite Event: Santa Barbara Presidio and de la Guerra Residence This 'small
group' tour. detailed on our Calendar page, includes adobe brick making
for Presido restoration projects and a private Conservator led tour of
the remarkably restored de la Guerra Residence.
May 22, 2010 - Elaina Archer, Documentarist: Topic: Rita Hayworth - By
popular acclaim Elaina Archer returns to La Senora to introduce and
hold Q&A after screening another of her documentary films. This
time the subject is Rita Hayworth, a a famous Mexican Actress, cousin to
Ramon Navarro, who did not play Mexican characters. With her fair skin
and raven locks her pin-up beauty knew no nationality, but Rita was a
frequent visitor to the Mexican film community gatherings at the Mojica
Hacienda. The film's Producer, Elaina Archer, is the former Head of the
Mary Pickford Library, and producer of four other acclaimed
documentaries with Turner Classic Movies and Hugh Hefner
Siqueros in Hollywood - September 23 Opening Reception for Patron Level Members
October 2010 The Collaborative exhibition and lecture at the
Autry was followed the next month with an operetta written from
Siqueros' material to depict his vision of how Pueblo de Los Angeles was
founded. His vision reflected the sentiments of the Era in which he
was an activist and included conjectures that were not readily supported
by historical documents......causing one of our members to comment that
it's not just a recent trend for 'documentaries' to be part fiction.
Prior Season Lectures/Tours
August 15, 2009 Why Be Good: Sexuality and Censorship - Another fascinating look back with Q & A led by the film's Producer, Elaina Archer, former Head of the Mary Pickford Library, and producer of four other documentaries with Turner Classic Movies and Hugh Hefner.
August 8, 2009 Author/Lecturer Thomas Zimmerman provided
a stimulating introduction to the world of Lola Montez via her film
with Leo Carrillo "Gypsy Wildcat". The talk, preceding the screening
of the film, addressed the unusual nature of the characters played by
Montez in all of her films. It was not customery in that period for
women to be the strongest characters on the screen, it being far more
common for them to show deference to the men.
August 2, 2009 Betty Lou and Randy Young,
Pacific Palisades Historians presented their highly acclaimed research
project "The Chatauqua Movement" addressing the foundations of this
middle class cultural education movement which was responsible for the
formation of all of Southern California's Beach Cities having piers and
amusement/conference centers. The local leaders of the Chautaqua chose
to build the city in which their own families would live, out of sight
of the ocean in a quiet setting now known as Pacific Palisades. The
Lecture was accompanied by exquisite slides of this remarkable venture.
August 1, 2009 - Elaina B. Archer,
Producer Turner Classic Movies Documentary Film Maker. "The True
Story of Marion Davies". This excellent film, funded by Hugh Hefnor,
accompanies La Senora's 2009 Lectures focusing on the Golden Era of
Movies and the 1920s 30's of The Gold Coast - Palisades Beach Road where
Anita Loos and Friends frolicked at the 110 room Beach House of Marion
Davies and W.R. Hearst. These lectures are presented in connection with
the recent opening of the Annenberg Beach House in the former Davies
residence.
June 20, 2009 – La Senora neighbor, Peter Graves, fielded two screenings with Q&A of his classic cult film “Airplane”. This
behind the scenes look from an iconic actor who’d been dead set against
performing in this film was an event to be cherished. Peter
was in rare form, almost as funny as the always side splitting film
itself. He also donated ‘a dessert morsel’ to La Senora’s film
collection – rare video footage of Peter Graves performing on the Dean
Martin television show as a ‘song and dance man while also performing on
his clarinet. The more than 100 people who
packed La Senora’s small theater for the two screenings had a memorable
event to leave chuckling over.
May 30, 2009 Patrons Offsite:
Venue: Ojai Studios
Topic: Recreating the Magic of Malibu and other 1930's Art Tiles
Private Home Tours with stories of their historic owners and restorations
March 28, 2009 Offsite: Topic: Mexican Calendar Girls
Venue: Heritage Museum
Docent Tour
Optional Dinner at the Heritage Restaurant following Lecture/Tour
February 28th: Offsite to Carlsbad: La Senora
members visited the ranch of Leo Carrillo. In addition to his fame as a
movie and TV star and his years as Grand Marshall of the Santa Barbara
Fiesta, Leo was also our Canyon resident,friend to all of the owners of
our Hacienda and a relative of the Rancho descendants. His Ranch in
Carlsbad is now owned by the City of Carlsbad.
February 22, 2009: Patron Offsite
The Autrey national Museum
Bold Caballeros and Noble Bandidos
February 8, 2009 Offsite:Topic: "Paradise Promoted"
Lecturer: Tom Zimmerman
Venue: Ruskin Theater
Collaborating Organization Sponsor: Santa Monica Conservancy
January 31st: At Pasqual
Marquez Cemetery:The Forensic Canine Institute performed a search for
graves within this 175 year old cemetery. Participants compared results
of this search survey with the details provided by the January 16-17
ground penetrating radar workshop presented by the Cotsen Institute
(Dean Goodman and Brian Damiata)
Cemetery Series :Topic: Searching for Family Graves in Pasqual Marquez Family Cemetery
Presenters: Institute for Canine Forensics
January 30th: Offsite:Join
La Senora in Santa Barbara at the Presidio where highly trained members
of the Forensic Canine Institute demonstrated their prowess at locating
human remains from the late 1700s through the 1800s.
January 29, 2009 Offsite: Topic: Searching for Graves in Presidio
Venue: Santa Barbara Presidio
Presentors:
Archivist for Santa Barbara Presidio - Background Lecture with private tour of the de la Guerra residence
Institute for Canine Forensics - demonstrated training and prowess of
dogs trained to find a variety of types of human remains from freshly
deceased to 600 year old graves
January 26, 2009 Offsite
Videotape & oral histories of Marquez Rancho Boca de Santa Monica and Palisades Residents
Lecturer: Randy Young
Venue: Pierson Theater
Collaborating Organization Sponsor: Pacific Palisades Historical Society
January 18, 2009 Offisite:
Venue: Los Angeles County Museum of Art
Topic: View the W. R. Randolph Hearst exhibit.
Lecturer: Cari Beauchamp, Author
Collaborating Organization Sponsor: LACMA
January 16-17
Overview: Bringing together two days of science and history. a
demonstration and workshop on the Technical Analysis of Ground Radar and
Magnetron Software was offered while the participants located the
historic graves in the Pascual Marquez Family Cemetery. Archeologists,
Conservationists, Archivists, Historians, Graduate Students from UCLA
and USC and 4th graders from Canyon Elementary School participated in
data collection and processing of images. Event Donors: Cotsen Institute of Archeology and the Squid and Squash Educational Foundation;
January 16th:
Visited Pascual Marzuez Family Cemetery as international expert
archeologists and geophysicists demonstrate the use of ground
penetrating radar (GPR). This system has been used on the Royal Tombs of
Japan, Genghis Kahn's Palace and the Prison of Leris (better known as
the prison where The Man in the Iron Mask was imprisioned by his brother
the King).
January 17th: Dean Goodman, the geophysicist and computer scientist who created the global "gold standard" GPR software, and Brian Damiata, also
a Research Associate at the Cotsen Institute lead a Workshop
demonstrating how the different facets of the system allow scientists
and conservators to understand what they've found so far and how to use
the material as a guide for what they might next seek out.
2008 Lectures at La Senora
Topic: InceVille - 1910 Movie Studio
Lecturer: Marc Wanamaker - Bison Archives
Topic: Malibu Tiles - Adamson/Rindge Legacy
Lecturer: Cristi Walden - Adamson House Docent
Topic: Los Angeles Streets named after Saints
San Lorenzo and the Pasqual Marquez Cemetery
Lecturer: Michael Walker - Artist and Author
Topic: The Chautauqua Movement
Lecturer: Randy Young, Historian
Topic: Rare Encaustic Tiles of La Senora
Lecturer: Amy Green - Tile Restorer
Topic: Readings from Private Letters of Frida Kahlo
Lecturer: Nori Green - Artist & Educator
Topic: Rancho Boca de Santa Monica History
Lecturer: Ernest Marquez, Historian and Rancho Descendent