Date/Time: October 11, 2026/10:00am-2:00pm
Location: 300 W Wells St, San Gabriel, CA 91776, USA
Registration at this link: https://givebutter.com/monsterpicnic

Registration & Suggested Donation
This event is family-friendly. All ages are welcome. We kindly request a suggested donation:
Adults: $20.00 (or pay what you can)
Children: $5.00

​Hear from the Experts: Join us at 10am for presentations by Friends of La Laguna, LA County Department of Arts and Culture Civic Art Division, Site & Studio Conservation, and the Fantastical Dominguez Sculpture Conservation Apprentices.

Family-Friendly Fun: Enjoy interactive activities and explore the famous play structures.

Food & Refreshments: We’ll be serving grilled hot dogs (and veggie dogs), chips, fresh fruit, and ice cold lemonade from 12–2pm. You're also welcome to bring your own snacks and beverages.

Location & Parking Details
Venue: Vincent Lugo Park | 300 W. Wells Street, San Gabriel, CA 91776

Parking: Free public parking is available on-site in the main park lot located near the corner of W. Wells Street and South Ramona Street. Additional street parking can be found along surrounding residential streets if the main lot fills up.

A Modern Monster Picnic: Come play at Benjamin Dominguez's La Laguna!

A collection of fantastical sea creatures and a lesser-known history of modernism inhabit a sandy lagoon in the city of San Gabriel’s Vincent Lugo Park. Rediscover your inner (mid-century modern) child or bring your own to a day of play, community, history, and food as Docomomo Southern California celebrates sculptor and playground designer, Benjamin Dominguez, at his masterpiece La Laguna de San Gabriel or “Monster Park.”

Dominguez (1894-1974) was a master concrete artist in his native Mexico when he immigrated to the US in 1956 at age 62. In Texas, Nevada, and Southern California, where he settled in La Puente, he honed a signature style that drew on European tradition, folk vernacular, and innovative handicraft to create interactive play sculptures at sites including Whittier Narrows Recreation Area and Atlantis Play Center in Garden Grove.

More than a recreational space for children, his final work at La Laguna is a precisely planned sculptural installation conceived as a civic attraction and community hub when it opened in 1965. As we explore Dominguez’s legacy, we will learn about the grassroots movement to save this rare example of postwar playground design from demolition and the rigorous process of restoring the artist’s one-of-a-kind handmade sculptures for future generations to enjoy.

Following a presentation of the history of the park and artist by Senya Lubisich & Eloy Zarate of Friends of La Laguna, we will be joined by the LA County Department of Arts and Culture, Site & Studio Conservation, and apprentices of their Fantastical Dominguez Sculpture Conservation Apprenticeship program which worked on the Dominguez Whittier Narrows site. They will provide a close-up tour of the sculptures to discuss conservation concerns and compare to the other site. Following the tour, we'll be grilling hot dogs!

Speaker and Organization Bios

Friends of La Laguna

Senya Lubisich
Senya earned her PhD in history from UC Riverside and has been full-time faculty at Citrus College since 2004. In 2006, she and her husband along with two other families, founded Friends of La Laguna to advocate for and preserve historic playgrounds. They successfully nominated playgrounds created by Mexican concrete artist, Benjamin Dominguez, to the state and national registers of historic places and raised funds for the restoration of the playgrounds. Senya has served as the Chair of the Historic Preservation and Cultural Resource Commission for the city of San Gabriel since 2018 as well as served on the board of Pasadena Heritage from 2020-2024.

Eloy Zarate 
Eloy completed graduate work in History at UC Riverside and has been full-time faculty at Pasadena City College since 2000. Along with his wife and two families he founded The Friends of La Laguna to advocate for and preserve historic playgrounds. He has helped with the nomination, fundraising, and project management of the playground in San Gabriel. As an important liaison with the community, Eloy has engaged the Pasadena City College Foundation in the work of preservation and created a Preservation Guild at PCC.

LA County Department of Arts and Culture, Civic Art Division
About the Project:
The Fantastical Dominguez Sculpture Conservation Apprenticeship is a program of the Los Angeles County Department of Arts and Culture in partnership with the Department of Parks and Recreation. Emerging artists, conservators, and archivists were selected through an open call to participate in the research and conservation of the sculptures under the guidance of Site & Studio Conservation and the Civic Art Division of the Department of Arts and Culture. The project provides an opportunity to share and exchange knowledge with members of the community through efforts to preserve artworks in the LA County Civic Art Collection.

Laleña Vellanoweth, LA County Conservation and Collections Manager
Laleña Arenas Vellanoweth is a conservator and cultural worker in Los Angeles, CA. She has held conservation positions at the Costume Institute, Metropolitan Museum of Art and Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, then worked as an independent conservator at the Autry Museum of the American West, Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, and Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Laleña is currently the Conservation and Collections Manager for the Civic Art Division of the Los Angeles County Department of Arts and Culture. 

Danielle Galván Gomez, LA County Civic Art Registrar
Danielle Galván Gomez (she/her/ella) is the Civic Art Registrar for Los Angeles County Department of Arts and Culture, helping to care for and promote the Los Angeles County Civic Art Collection. Danielle received her Master in Library and Information Science from the University of Washington and is passionate about community archives, public history, and art. Off the clock, she is the volunteer archivist for the Altadena Historical Society and Postal Service for the Dead as well as a painter and ceramicist.

Summer Ibarra, Historical Research Apprentice
(Bio forthcoming)

Tzinti Aguirre, Conservation Apprentice
Tzinti Aguirre-Medina is an artist, educator and pre-program art conservation student born and raised in the San Gabriel Valley. She has a B.A. in Speculative Design from the University of California, San Diego. Since her youth, she has participated in several community public art projects, assisting her father as a mosaic artist in making his public art and mosaic murals come to life. She recently worked as an art conservation apprentice with Site and Studio Conservation on The Fantastical Dominguez Sculpture Conservation Apprenticeship Project (2025), though this was not her first interaction with Dominguez’s sculptures. Her childhood memories include trips to the Whittier Narrows Recreation Area and Vincent Lugo Park, where she remembers playing fondly on the concrete play sculptures with her siblings and friends. Tzinti hopes to continue to engage with public art in the future as an art conservator, working towards the care and keeping of artworks that generations to come can cherish just as she has.

Alexandra Gonzalez, Conservation Apprentice
Alexandra Gonzalez (b. 1997, Los Angeles) is a mixed-media ceramicist and teaching artist based at the American Museum of Ceramic Art in Pomona, CA. Her practice explores the various facets of collective memory and influences through figurative storytelling. Often miniature in scale, her sculptures alter perspective by mirroring the environments they inhabit. She holds a BA in Studio Arts from the California State University of Fullerton, Fullerton CA. Gonzalez’s work has been exhibited both nationally and internationally at venues such as Tryst Alternative Art Fair, Quiet Please Pop Up, and awarded Honorable Mention at the International Ceramics Festival at Ceramics Park MINO in Japan.