Corn-fed Art

Los Angeles is about to get its own version of New York's "The Gates."

Well, sorta.

The Los Angeles Times reports today that an empty 32-acre lot between Chinatown and Lincoln Heights will be turned into a temporary art installation this fall.

Artist Lauren Bon will plant a $2-million patch of corn in the former rail yard, known locally as the "Cornfield" and earmarked to eventually be turned into a public park.

Writes the paper: Bon has named her proposed project "Not a Cornfield." Though some have likened it to Christo's "The Gates" installation that was disassembled after two weeks in New York's Central Park, hers is an "ephemeral," nontraditional art form that will naturally fade away after six months, she said.

The Cornfield site takes its name from the stalks of corn that sprouted along the rail yard's tracks from seeds that spilled from hopper cars being pulled into Los Angeles beginning in the 1870s.

Developed by the Southern Pacific Railroad, the train yard served Los Angeles' first rail depot, where thousands of newcomers arrived to start fresh in the West.

In earlier days, the flat area at the foot of the Elysian hills and adjacent to the Los Angeles River was the site of a thriving Native American village seen in 1769 by explorers of the Portola expedition. Later, it was where the Los Angeles pueblo's first water supply — the Zanja Madre, or "mother ditch" — was constructed.

Bon said a mobile cistern holding water drawn from the river would be incorporated in her project to demonstrate zanja irrigation. An overhead misting system will also be used and will be illuminated at night with turquoise lights that will give the field a colorful glow, she said.

A mile-long trail will circle the cornfield and "a processional path" will lead to "a sacred place" near the center of the corn where stories will be told, Bon said.

The corn will be harvested in conjunction with a fall festival in mid-September.