posted is from Ruscha, who was at Chouinard during the late 1950s: "While another art school in the

area had dress codes (ie: Art Center: no facial hair, no sandals, no bongo drums) Chouinard was free and easy. Shall I say more freedom fo r everyone? It was great and it worked." Chouinard kept working while Ruscha was there because an admiring Walt Disney pumped large sums into the operation, which in 1957 nearly went bankrupt because of an embezzlement. Starting in 1929, Nelbert Chouinard had given D isney animators sch olars hips on a pay -it-back -later basis to help them hone t hei r s kill s . Dis ney di e d in 19 66 an d Ch oui na r d in 19 69 . Wi th t he 1950 s Disney gift, Tourje said, organizational control had passed to what eventually became California Institute of the Arts, a school pioneered by Disney. In 1972, when CalArts opened in Valencia, most of Chouinard' s faculty was let go.

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In hindsight, Tourje said, it might have been smart to try to forge an official tie between the new web venture and the Getty's sweeping regional initiative, Pacific Standard Time: Art in L.A. 1945 -1980. But hell settle for what he hopes will be a symbiotic buzz from all the attention now going to L.A.'s contemporary a r t h i s t o r y . " P a c i f i c S t a n da r d T i m e i s s o p e r v a s i v e , i t a l m o s t d o e s n ' t m a t t e r " that there's no formal link, he said. O t h e r C h o u i n a r d F o u n d a t i o n a c t i v i t i e s i n c l u d e c o m pl e t i n g a n h o u r - l o n g docu mentary film about a teenager whose life took a turn for the better thanks to his studies in the late-2000s Chouinard-sponsored art classes at rec and parks centers, with the story widening to incorporate Chouinard's institutional legacy. Another big dream, Tourje says, is raising an estimated $3 million to $5 million to buy back 743 Grand View St., the building near MacArthur Park that Nelbert Ch ouinar d built to house her school starting in 1929. It's now the home o f N e w T i m e s P r e s by t e r i a n Ch u r c h . A c qu i s i t i on - w h i c h w ou l d r e qu i r e t h e h e l p o f m a j o r d o n o r s c u r r e n t l y n ow h e r e i n s i gh t - w o u l d m a k e po s s i bl e a n a t t e m p t to restore "Street Meeting," a proletarian political mural that David Alfaro Siqueiros created in 1932 on the wall of an inner courtyard while guest -teaching a t C h o u i n a r d . I t h a d l o n g be e n pa i n t e d a n d p l a s t e r e d o v e r u n t i l b e i n g redisc overe d in the mid-2000s. Tourje says he's also interested in getting the Chouinard Foundation back into the art -education game, via online cour ses offe red thr ough the website.

"The web allows us to be very economical and still be a very viable information platform," he said.