When someone who has dedicated their life to scholarship and the arts passes away unexpectedly, what better way to remember them than with a scholarship to support the arts?
On April 22, 2023, at 2 pm, a small memorial was dedicated to Louise Coffey-Webb, the city’s Collections Manager for the Culver City Art in Public Places Program who died unexpectedly on July 3, 2022.
The memorial, organized by friends in the Culver Arts Foundation, led by Jim Clarke, was set with a picnic basket and a beautiful, floral patterned cup-and-saucer set; just what Lulu would have set out for tea. A small stone with her name and her dates was discreetly tucked nearby. Inside the basket – wooden spools of antique silk thread, exactly the thing she would have loved to show and share.
Her career included working for the costume departments of Warner Bros. and Sony, being Collections Manager at LACMA, a Curator and Assistant Professor at Woodbury University, and a Project Manager for the James G. Galanos Foundation. For the last five years or so she was an inspired and committed Collections Manager for the Culver City Art in Public Places Program. During her career she also held down many more voluntary positions, board memberships and advisory roles too numerous to mention. She is the author of Managing Costume Collections and the famous little red book of Culver City’s Art in Public Places.
Louise managed numerous costume collections during her career, collections composed of amazing works of art. The scholarship will be $2,500 annually and given to an Academy of Visual and Performing Arts student interested in pursuing the stagecraft arts (i.e. costumes, sets, lighting, sound, stage management, etc). The selection will be made by AVPA staff. The intent is to both respect the work that Louise did with costumes, and to provide support for students who wish to pursue the technical aspects of art that are as essential as performing and exhibiting.
Friends were invited to take a spool of thread or two with them, maybe think of something fun to sew. The formal announcement of the Louise Coffey-Webb Memorial Scholarship will be announced at this year’s upcoming AVPA Java Gala on June 3, 2023.
Judith Martin-Straw
