Skin Deep

"Every city was once a city," is the message behind this painterly photo composite that combines the peeling paint of an early 19th century tanker train permanently parked at a Los Angeles railway preserve and a rooftop view in Los Angeles where the Tongva Sacred Springs can still be visited from a residential street beside a public school. A small sign by the curb reads, "Home of the Gabrielino Tongva People." The artist's Los Angeles roots go back two generations to the 1920s. The Gabrielino Tongva People resided in the greater Los Angeles basin from 2500 BCE to 1833.