L.A. in the Round

In February, with the help of a carnival barker, an organ grinder and a Romanian psychic with two fortunetelling cats, Velas unveiled "The Valley of the Smokes," Los Angeles' only hand-painted "panorama rotunda." Conceived, constructed and painted by Velas, the work is a time machine twice over--the painting depicts what Velas imagines the Los Angeles basin might have looked like 150 years ago and its setting is a re-creation of precinematic virtual reality: 360-degree renditions of faraway places and famous events that flourished in the 19th century.

Velas had harbored dreams of resurrecting the panorama rotunda since researching its history for a project at Washington University in St. Louis. Returning home to Los Angeles after receiving her BFA in painting, she stumbled on the empty circular structure on an overgrown lot on Hollywood Boulevard, and dream met reality.

"I was just driving by and looked to my left and the building just happened to be there. Thunder sounded and there was this huge ray of light. That's what it felt like," says Velas, a petite woman with large, serious brown eyes and an obvious delight in what she has created. "What better place to have an attraction! Cinema and film made the city prosper, yet cinema itself did the panorama in."

Velas hunted down the property's owner and enlisted the aid of friends and family, who spent 10 months renovating the building while she plotted her 70-foot-long painting. Her uncle, David Velas, a finish carpenter, assisted Sara in building a circular chamber inside the pavilion, creating a recessed frame to hide the painting's edges as it wraps around the circumference of the room.

Velas' father, Joseph Velas, an expert in miniature lighting components, hid strings of Christmas lights and tiny flood lamps in a soffit above the painting so that the only illumination in the black room is reflected off the painting's surface.

"The lighting is just as much a part of the experience as the painting itself," says Velas, "almost like you're looking out the window. It helps with the suspension of disbelief, like, 'Oh, I'm really there.' "