After Clara Shortridge Foltz was commission by the Los Angeles County Department of Arts and Culture.

This piece is (partly) a homage to the founder of the Public Defender’s Office, Clara Shortridge Foltz (1849 – 1934). Foltz was the first woman lawyer on the West Coast, a powerful suffragist, and a single mother of five. She has a complicated legacy as part of a coalition that passed the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, but many of her ideas would help to protect rather than persecute minority populations. Foltz introduced the radical idea of a Public Defender in an 1893 speech at the Chicago World’s Fair. She created the first Public Defender’s Office in Los Angeles after suffrage was passed in 1911, and a coalition of women voted to support her cause in 1913.

By including a mirror in the design, the piece also pays homage to the people that currently work here. As I developed this artwork, I observed how the vision for the Public Defender has evolved beyond Foltz’s original vision, one which now includes rehabilitation, restoration, healing, and harm reduction. Thus, this piece creates an echo of history in the present day. In the artwork, Foltz’s dreams are intermingled and refined in the reflections of the individuals that continue to transform the legal system today.

I worked on this piece for almost two years and took a deep dive into the history of the suffrage movement in California. The following images are collages from my research, breathing new life into the archive.