Vincent Valdez

I am blown away by the beautifully written piece "Driven to Distraction" (Sept. 16) about artist Vincent Valdez and his Chavez Ravine opus for Ry Cooder. Most art stories are as dull as watching paint dry, but Lynell George gave us a compelling and thoughtful account of this artist's process, creative battle and journey. Valdez is very talented, but I now appreciate and understand the thought and action behind each brush stroke. His creation is valorous, and so was the article.

I am blown away by the beautifully written piece "Driven to Distraction" (Sept. 16) about artist Vincent Valdez and his Chavez Ravine opus for Ry Cooder. Most art stories are as dull as watching paint dry, but Lynell George gave us a compelling and thoughtful account of this artist's process, creative battle and journey. Valdez is very talented, but I now appreciate and understand the thought and action behind each brush stroke. His creation is valorous, and so was the article.

VINCENT VALDEZ thought it should be simple enough. The job: Retelling the nasty land-grab saga of Chavez Ravine, with all its vivid twists and turns, in all of its lurid hues. The story was shot through with themes that the young artist often revisited in his work: class and race, haves and have-nots, history and hearsay. The only significant twist in this project was that instead of a using a standard canvas, he'd be layering the narrative onto a truck.

VINCENT VALDEZ thought it should be simple enough. The job: Retelling the nasty land-grab saga of Chavez Ravine, with all its vivid twists and turns, in all of its lurid hues. The story was shot through with themes that the young artist often revisited in his work: class and race, haves and have-nots, history and hearsay. The only significant twist in this project was that instead of a using a standard canvas, he'd be layering the narrative onto a truck.

After more than seven years on the road, the Chicano art collection of Cheech Marin has finally come home. Its last stop is the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the hometown venue that initially turned down a show that toured nationally and drew large crowds as "Chicano Visions." A scaled-down version, titled "Los Angelenos/Chicano Painters of L.A.," opens Sunday at LACMA West. It features almost 50 paintings by some of the most influential members of the first generation of Chicano artists, including Gronk, Patssi Valdez and three of the original members of Los Four -- Frank Romero, Carlos Almaraz and Gilbert "Magu" Lujan -- the collective featured in what is considered the country's first major Chicano art exhibition, shown at LACMA in 1974.

Let's start with the hands, Ry Cooder's hands. They're large, expressive: hands you could see wrapped around a guitar neck, or in the act of making things. They move when he speaks, creating shapes in the air that take form and dissipate, all in the space of a few words. On a Friday afternoon at the Petersen Automotive Museum, Cooder is using those hands to help recount the saga of "El Chavez Ravine," a 1953 Chevy pickup he commissioned to be rebuilt in 2007 in the style of a vintage ice cream truck and covered with an elaborate mural, by the artist Vincent Valdez, depicting the eviction of Mexican American families from the neighborhood that is now home to Dodger Stadium.

In a seminal essay published shortly before his death in 1970, Los Angeles Times columnist Ruben Salazar asked: "Who is a Chicano? And what is it the Chicanos want?" It was a time when tens of thousands of Mexican Americans, fueled by anger and a newfound sense of cultural and political awareness, waged open rebellion against a system that for generations had repressed and marginalized them.

You've got to hand it to Ry Cooder. When he embraces a new musical culture, he doesn't care where the adventure takes him. A decade ago, he traveled to Havana, where he stumbled upon the Buena Vista Social Club -- and got slapped with a hefty fine for violating the U.S. embargo of Cuba. On Sunday, the acclaimed American guitarist found himself in a place where white men rarely tread -- a Pico Rivera nightclub called A Mi Hacienda.

Drinkers around the tinsel-draped bar at Mexican Jones, a restaurant on Van Nuys Boulevard, were paying little attention to the room around them as the notes of "Jingle Bell Rock" blasted from the sound system one holiday night. That changed abruptly when two uniformed Los Angeles Police Department officers and a state Alcoholic Beverage Control investigator entered.

Velvet painting's stature in the art world is akin to that of creamed corn in the province of fine cuisine. Although artists have been putting paint to fuzzy fabric since the 14th century, velvet painting's reputation is understandably weighed down by the volume of curio Elvises and crying clowns sold inexpensively at the Mexican border alongside porcelain burros and ashtrays shaped like Texas.

Fernando Ruelas, who with his brothers founded Duke's So. Cal, considered the world's oldest continuing lowrider car club, and expanded its reach beyond Southern California during his years as president, has died. He was 60. Ruelas died of cancer Friday at his home in La Habra, said his brother Ernie. FOR THE RECORD: Fernando Ruelas obituary: A news obituary on Fernando Ruelas in the Oct. 27 LATExtra section said the Ruelas brothers founded Duke's So. Cal car club. One of the brothers, Rene, is not involved with the club.

Supporters of Self Help Graphics, the historic East L.A. arts center, got a little sanctimonious last week when they learned that the building they had occupied rent-free for decades had been sold by their landlord and longtime benefactors, the Sisters of St. Francis. How could those nuns pull the rug out from under them like that, without notice? The art agency's board president, Armando Duron, even suggested that the leader of the Catholic order should go to confession for the alleged duplicity.