Historic Lectures and Tours « Back
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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Upcoming Lectures:
For events at the Mojica Hacienda, La Senora's Season 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 those events show up only on the Patron Level Members web page which requires the password to sign in.
2010 Lectures & Tours
But first our most important announcement!
January 20, 2010 - 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 Cotsen 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
Date to be Announced Upcoming Lecture/Tours
Offsite to Carlsbad: 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.
Offsite: Tiles of the 1930s -Location to be announced
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
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