Andrew Leicester
Los Angeles
Zanja Madre
801 Fiqueroa Street, Los Angeles
Los Angeles County Thomas Guide page 634, grid E4

Andrew Leicester's "Zanja Madre," recalls the "Mother Ditch" or the main irrigation line that brought water into downtown Los Angeles at the turn of the century. His installation is the centerpiece of a plaza organized around the role water has played in the development of Southern California.

Leicester created a symbolic journey that begins in the far end of the plaza in the "Garden of Paradise." Water pours into a cross-shaped pool from the shattered earth, uplifted into a broken pyramid pierced by an arrowhead that refers to Lake Arrowhead, a source of Los Angeles water. Water flows from the pool into a "reservoir" and then into the Zanja Madre. It flows from there into a second reservoir, symbolic of the LA basin.

"My art is not instantly understandable, nor is it meant to be taken lightly," Leicester said. "Good art tends to raise questions, and it is important for artists to focus attention on the debatable. Otherwise, you get 'safe' art, which serves only the prevailing popular theory."