There’s more to Instagram in Hermosa Beach than sunsets and rounds of cocktails.
Dozens of people gathered in downtown Hermosa Saturday afternoon for a ceremony that marked the unveiling of the the latest creation of Colette Miller, a Los Angeles-based artist whose paintings of “angel wings” have earned her international acclaim. Miller’s newest wings reside on an exterior wall of a home near the intersection of 17th Street and Hermosa Avenue.
Miller said the scissors used to cut the ribbon to unveil the mural called to mind a previous painting done in scarier circumstances. She recalled painting wings in Ciudad Juarez, a Mexican border town at the center of that nation’s cartel conflict, and sleeping with scissors under her pillow to protect herself.
Leading the ceremony was Betsy Ryan, who lives at what has become known as the 17th Street Mural House, which previously hosted art inspired by last year’s campaign against oil drilling in the city. Ryan sought out Miller and hosted the ceremony to honor various “angels” in the local community and elsewhere.
Among those receiving awards was Joseph Kadakian, a San Francisco jeweler who crafted sterling silver necklaces that Ryan is selling to aid refugees displaced in the Syrian civil war, and Lana Istwani, who runs the Green Store on 22nd Street and volunteered to sell the necklaces at her store and at her mosque.
“There are a lot of people who do things just out of the kindness of their hearts,” Ryan said. “Those are the people we wanted to honor.”
