This week our last-look abandons the form of a review to instead highlight a preview of an ephemeral happening sparked by the curious reflections of two parallel explorers.

In 1885, Charles Lummis documented his 143-day odyssey from Cincinnati to Los Angeles through dispatches to his hometown Ohio newspaper. In 1894, the author, poet, and long-time LA Times contributor purchased the now historical Highland Park landmark known as the Lummis Home. Surrounded by Sycamores and deemed ‘El Alisal’ (‘The Place of the Sycamore Trees’), the 4,000 sq ft Crafstman relic was built at the hands of Lummis over thirteen years— a labor of love inspired by his journeys, a structure embedding cultural narratives and saturated with personal details right down to the window panes he crafted from his own glass-plate images. Upon completion, Lummis hosted parties in the form of ‘noises,’ inviting artists, writers, and musicians to convene in the specifically designed exhibition hall— designating the Lummis Home to become a lasting social anchor and site of experimentation for a burgeoning community of seekers.

In 2014, LA-born artist and curator Sylvie Lake embarked on a self-imposed residency traveling through rural Texas— leading her to find herself as a ‘believer (in [her] own particular non-dogmatic way)’ while living on a picturesque religious estate in the tiny town of Tehuacana (population 283 at the 2010 census). Among two gospel singers, a professor of Apologetics, two cowboys, and the ‘constant male-focused language of Christianity,’ Lake’s stay in Tehuacana ignited a ‘dream about how to meld [her] world of cultural appropriation and post-modernist aesthetics with their nostalgic visions of beauty.’ Scouring the internet for places she had never been in her native home, Lake’s research led her to discover a ‘Holy Grail in the form of a sensitive, considered environment conductive to considering details.’ That Holy Grail being the Lummis Home.

Identifying what the artist and curator calls a ‘kindred spirit’ in the facade of Lummis, Lake shares an invested practice in utilizing performance as a vehicle for exploration, an interest in how environments construct systems of belief, and a gift for activating architectural space as a possibility for sharing objects that ‘are delicate, eroticized and wrought with tragedy.’ Her ongoing journey accumulates tonight in her curation of the one-night only show Vestal Virgins. With a mainly female cast— including Angeline Rivas, Elena Stonaker, WIFE‘s Jasmine Albuquerque Croissant, Kelly Akashi, among many more— Lake activates the river-rock walls of the castle-like turret with artists engaging in a an ongoing exploration ‘oscillating between both autonomy and plasticity, operating as their own personal myth makers.’ Referencing the devout figure of the Vestal Virgin— women who were ‘keepers of the sacred flame,’ unbound to social obligations like marriage or bearing children— Lake stretches the metaphor to be a unisex and autonomous form, showcasing a group of international artists whose work subverts the systems we exist within by creating a world their very own.

Vestal Virgins occupies the Lummis Home for one-night only tonight, Thursday Oct 15th. Performances and exhibition invite all from 6-9pm sharp.