Finding Art in a Rocky Situation
The big stone needed a little rocking.
So the homeless man gently nudged it left and right, and then front to back.
The basketball-size hunk of granite seesawed for a moment before coming to a stop--perfectly balanced on top of a delicately stacked pile of stones.
Fernando Anglero carefully pulled away his hands and slowly stepped back.
“It gives me such pleasure when I find the center,” he said. “It brings me peace.”
Welcome to Anglero’s sculpture garden, an eight-acre oasis of unexpected harmony at the edge of downtown Los Angeles.
For months, the 39-year-old unemployed man has spent each day plucking ancient river rocks from a vacant lot between 1st and Temple streets and stacking them in fragile, delicately balanced piles.
Viewed from the street, some of the the stone arrangements take the form of whimsical birds, graceful women and weary men. Others have the look of a casual naturalness and serenity.
Anglero started his garden after he came on the empty lot by accident last year.
For 113 years the land was the home of the Los Angeles Soap Co., a sprawling factory that produced White King detergent until its shutdown in 1987. A short time after that the plant was demolished to make way for a hotel.
That project was never built. But the bulldozing uncovered tons of round, water-smoothed rocks from what for hundreds of years had been the flood plain for the nearby Los Angeles River.
Anglero said he began camping on the lot after losing his job as a janitor at the Beverly Center. One day he noticed an elderly man taking smooth, rounded rocks from the site.
“He said he was making a Japanese garden at his house in East Los Angeles. He gave me the idea for a garden here,” Anglero said.
Some of Anglero’s first creations were knocked over by vandals. But gradually the sculpture garden began taking shape. And soon, outsiders were noticing the effect of his work on the neighborhood.
“It made me drive around the block for another look the first time I saw it,” said Walter Cotten, an artist whose studio is in a loft in the nearby downtown artists’ district. “I was pretty impressed. What he’s doing is obviously metaphorical as well as spiritual.”
Cotten, who also teaches art at San Diego State University, described the rows of stone sculpture as “menhir,” similar to prehistoric art found in Western Europe and Africa. Stacks of stones topped by flat stones are called “dolmens” by anthropologists, Cotten said.
The sculpture’s Zen-like qualities also caught the attention of Japanese Americans living in the Little Tokyo area north of Anglero’s garden. A Japanese art form of finding and displaying rocks that resemble natural forms is known as suiseki.
Anglero said he sees faces in some of the rocks, along with the images of things like waterfalls, mountains and trees and animals.
“Some rocks say, ‘Pick me up, pick me up!’ ” he said. “You can feel the energy here.
“Working with rocks has helped me learn about myself. They give me balance and harmony too. It is sort of the yin and yang concept--like Tao.”
Born in Puerto Rico, Anglero said he studied computers for a year in college before moving to the United States in 1984. His three children, ages 7 to 12, live in Santa Monica with their mother, he said.
Anglero said he eats in nearby skid row soup kitchens and regularly visits the Los Angeles Central Library’s religion, philosophy and science sections. Next to his dome tent are paperback books he is reading: “The Laws of Eternity” by Ryuho Okawa and Mark Twain’s “Letters From the Earth.”
He quotes from Thomas Wolfe’s writings when he talks of the “perfect symmetry” of the 60 or so sculptures he has created so far. He likens the contrast of their texture and form with the cunning and elegance of tigers that prowl through jungles.
Anglero said property managers working for a Chinese group that owns the land have told him there are no immediate development plans for the rock-strewn ground. So he continues with his sculpture.
“The wind doesn’t knock them down. Neither does the rain, or the vibration from the 18-wheelers on the streets around here. There’s a beauty and grace to the rocks.”
He says he continues searching for his personal potential. “I’m content here, but not satisfied.”
Until he finds his way, he plans to leave no stone unturned.
