"It's a smaller space, so we might not have as many exhibitions as in our old place and won't be able to host as many people," Kathy Gallegos told CALÓ News as she walked a reporter through Avenue 50 Studio's new storefront early in 2025. "But it's ours."
This Sunday, November 8, that storefront at 3714 N. Figueroa St. is where the Arroyo Arts Collective's Discovery Tour starts again. The tour is now called ART/FOUND. It runs from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., and tour maps are handed out at Avenue 50 Studio on Fig. The event is smaller than the tour many longtime Northeast LA residents remember, and the gallery hosting it is smaller than the one it left.
Three versions of the same Sunday
The Arroyo Arts Collective formed in 1989. Its member communities include Highland Park, Mount Washington, Montecito Heights, Cypress Park, Lincoln Heights and Eagle Rock. The Discovery Tour began in 1993. The Collective describes its usual scale as 50-plus homes and studios, 70 to 120 artists and 500 to 700 visitors a year. In 2016, for example, the 24th annual tour sent drivers to 80 artists across Highland Park, Mount Washington, Eagle Rock, Garvanza and Montecito Heights, NELA Live reported.
Since then the tour has changed shape twice.
| Final annual tour | Revival | ART/FOUND | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Date | Sunday, Nov. 19, 2017 | Saturday, Sept. 17, 2022 | Sunday, Nov. 8, 2026 |
| Hours | 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. | 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. | 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. |
| Format | Open studios in artists' homes | Artists placed at selected locations | One-day holiday art market at five locations |
| Map pickup | Southwest Museum Mt. Washington Campus, 234 Museum Dr. | Avenue 50 Studio, 131 N. Avenue 50 | Avenue 50 Studio on Fig, 3714 N. Figueroa St. |
The Collective called the 2017 edition the "Final Tour" and the end of 25 years. Admission was free. In 2022 it brought the tour back after five years away, with a change it spelled out on the revival page. The tour was still self-guided by car through homes and galleries in Highland Park and Mount Washington, but "this is not an Open Studio Tour as in the past." Visitors went to a set list of locations where artists had been placed, and tickets cost $15.
The 2026 version comes with a count. The call for artists describes a one-day pop-up tour at Avenue 50 Studio on Fig and four other locations, so five stops in all, coordinated by Lisa Tomczeszyn. The Collective's event page lists 41 contributing artists. That compares with 70 to 120 in the open-studio years and 80 in 2016, spread now across five locations where there used to be more than fifty. Count the hours too. The day has gone from seven and a half hours in 2017 to five this year.
The map counter is on Figueroa now
The 2017 tour started at the Southwest Museum's Mt. Washington Campus. Since the 2022 revival, Avenue 50 Studio has been the starting point, and the gallery's move explains why this year's starting point is on a different street.
Gallegos is a fine-art photographer. In the late 1990s she needed a place to shoot, process and print work for an exhibition at Self-Help Graphics, and she found a storefront at 131 N. Avenue 50, just west of Figueroa, CALÓ News reported. She kept telling people she was going to "the Avenue 50 studio," and the name stuck. She heard that Chicano artists were struggling to get into established Los Angeles galleries, so she opened up the large front room and rented it to artists for their own shows.
That room hosted exhibitions, workshops, fundraisers and poetry readings for about 25 years. The same CALÓ News report says the property owner had long wanted to redevelop the site as condominiums, and a notice to vacate came at the end of 2024. The gallery moved in January 2025, Los Angeles Literature reported, to a storefront where Highland Park meets Cypress Park. It took a new name, Avenue 50 Studio on Fig. The first show in the new space was "Changes/Cambios," which opened March 8, 2025, with work by Angela María Ortiz, Heriberto Luna, Man One, Rebecca Nabarrete, Louis Jacinto and Oscar Castillo.
The 2022 revival handed out maps at 131 N. Avenue 50, in ZIP code 90042. This year's maps come from the 90065 storefront. The Collective's own page lists the Figueroa address as its starting point, and that storefront is the smaller room Gallegos was describing in the quote above.
What Sunday, November 8 looks like
The official event page bills ART/FOUND as a curated, one-day holiday art market. It takes in historic private homes, Avenue 50 Studio on Fig and participating artist studios around Northeast Los Angeles. It's built for "art collectors, curators, journalists, art enthusiasts, and the simply curious." The plan for the day is simple.
- Start on Figueroa. Tour maps are given out at 3714 N. Figueroa St. The other four addresses are on the map, not on the website.
- Drive the route. The Collective calls it a self-guided driving tour, so plan on taking the car between stops.
- Watch the clock. The window is 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., which Artillery Magazine's listing also shows. Five stops in five hours is a full afternoon if you linger at each.
- Shop as well as look. The call for artists asked for jewelry, textiles, assemblage, mixed-media work and handmade goods. Each participant had to be a current Collective member, which costs $25 a year.
You'll see some familiar names among the 41 contributors, including Raoul De La Sota, Iris Schneider, Katsu Yokoyama and Betty Wan Hamada. C. Michael Frey painted and designed this year's poster and is also on the artist list. Support for the event comes in part from the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, the LA County Department of Arts and Culture, and Creative Recovery LA.
If you went to LA Design Weekend in September, the idea will feel familiar: put the work inside rooms the neighborhood already has. ART/FOUND has done that since 1993, and this year it uses fewer of them.
Six days later, the next relocated room opens its holiday season
The pattern repeats on York Boulevard the following Saturday. Bob Baker Marionette Theater closed its Echo Park location at the end of 2018 and reopened in Highland Park in 2019, LAist reported. Today its shows are at 4949 York Blvd. This season's production, A Holiday Wonderland Special, runs November 14, 2026 through January 17, 2027. It's hosted by Demitrius Nova Twinklestar III, known as Demi Star, and works like a holiday TV special with carols, familiar puppets and winter-themed numbers. The show is for all ages, lasts about an hour and costs $25 a ticket. A sensory-friendly performance is set for Saturday, December 19 at 10:30 a.m. The theater is also hosting Gelli Haha's Haha Holiday Spectacular with the Bob Baker Marionettes on December 2 and 3. Showtimes and availability can change, so check the theater's calendar before you book.
So two of the first big dates on Highland Park's holiday calendar are run by institutions that moved within the last eight years. One came from Echo Park in 2019. The other moved from Avenue 50 to Figueroa in January 2025 and now hosts the start of a tour that has gone from more than fifty homes and studios to five stops. The rest of the season's openings on York and Figueroa are in our field report from this year and our Highland Park neighborhood guide.
Several of the stops on ART/FOUND are historic private homes. If you own an architecturally significant home in Northeast LA and want to talk about how its story would come across to the right buyer, the team at RSR Real Estate is happy to help. Request a Private Consultation.
