Artist:	Daniel Dodd
Date:	2002 - current
District:	First Supervisorial District
Location:	DPSS Building 813 East 4th Place Los Angeles, CA 90013
Department:	Public Social Services

Beginning in 2002, Daniel Dodd, working for Art Share LA, a community-based arts organization, collaborated with high school students from Roosevelt High School and the surrounding Downtown Arts District to produce three ceramic tile murals, one each year. All three murals were installed on the DPSS parking garage at 813 E. 4th Place to beautify it.

Their first mural depicts the City’s diversity by setting the skyline of Los Angeles above an image of the globe which is crisscrossed by LA’s freeways. Below the globe are the faces of four children, all of different ethnicities. Their second mural is inspired by Buddhist mandalas, symbolic of the cosmos and the desire for harmony. Their third, and most recent, mural receives its inspiration from ancient Aztec calendars. Both the mandala and the calendar murals are 9’ d.

All the projects arose out of Art Share LA’s after school program. Each mural took several months to create and the students studied architectural drawings, concepts, and methods of fabrication. The students then completed the final design together. Everything, the labor, time, and materials, was donated by Art Share LA and the participants involved.

Daniel Dodd and his students are currently working on another mural for the garage which will be inspired by Japanese motifs.

About the Artist: Daniel Dodd has been the Associate Director for Art Share since 2000. He studied painting and fine art at Syracuse University and has been a mosaic instructor for seven years. In addition to his work with students, he has participated in many mosaic community beautification projects in the Los Angeles area. His artwork can be seen at the Santa Monica Conservancy River Gardens Park, at the pedestrian footbridge at 53rd Street and Long Beach Avenue in Los Angeles, and at the Foothill Family Center in Pasadena.