On one recent weekend, Todd Lerew drove nearly 600 miles round-trip in order to celebrate the opening of Barstow’s California Clown Museum and commemorate the last days of the Burlesque Hall of Fame in Las Vegas. A few weeks later, he joined celebrants at Ratha Yatra — the 49th annual Festival of the Chariots, a Venice Beach celebration of Indian cultural heritage. He’s jammed with Celtic musicians, cheered for the riders of the Palm Springs Hot Rodeo and, for the past nine years until it was lost in the 2024 Line fire, spent time as a volunteer fire lookout at Keller Peak in the San Bernardino National Forest.
“I think I have an overactive curiosity muscle,” Lerew says.
This muscle nudged him across the country to receive an MFA from Cal Arts, powers his work as director of special projects for the Library Foundation of Los Angeles, and is the motor behind his most recent personal project, “Also On View: Unique and Unexpected Museums of Greater Los Angeles” (Angel City Press, 2024). The book invites readers to explore a wide array of unique sites, and suggests these places and their curators and collectors might provide a more multifaceted understanding of our rangy metropolis. There is always more to learn.
Even after touring more than 750 museums in Los Angeles, Ventura, Orange County, the Inland Empire and beyond, Lerew finds it difficult to define the word “museum.” He takes some delight in the mystery. If we don’t know what exactly qualifies as a museum, then the idea of creating a museum is open to anyone.
Lerew’s drive to establish and nurture his own identity informs his belief that this is a right that belongs to everyone. It’s rooted in his rural South Dakota upbringing, where, as a teenager, he turned his bedroom on the farm into a monument to all things unusual and artistic.
“The culture of South Dakota is obviously very conservative,” he says, “and something I couldn’t wait to leave, but having the experience of being from that environment has allowed me to see multiple perspectives at the same time.”
As a young person, he assisted his mother in her work with Lutheran Social Services and tutored the children of recent immigrants. “Some of these kids had never seen snow before and now they were plunged into a Dakota winter,” he remembers. The experience of listening to their stories and discovering points of connection has stayed with him.
Lerew is soft-spoken, keeps his beard neatly trimmed, and dresses most often in earthtones. His shoes are meant for walking. In conversation, he often pauses before speaking as if waiting for what he’s heard to really land. Behind his glasses, his eyes are very blue and very kind. If listening were an Olympic sport, he’d get a medal for sure.
“People appreciate when somebody takes a legitimate, earnest interest in what they’re doing or what they’ve created,” Lerew says.
Constantly in search of new experiences, Lerew reads guidebooks, newsletters, community newspapers and map listings. He keeps an eye out for hand-painted signs, and describes, with pleasure, a recent find: “Museum this way, honk three times.”
And, of course, the more people he meets, the more he receives word-of-mouth recommendations and suggestions.
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His excursions have illuminated what he refers to as the “diversity and messiness” of places that exist in the shadow of larger, professionally managed, heavily endowed institutions. In the introduction to “Also on View,” he describes the “countless worlds” that exist in the urban sprawl.
Just 64 museums fit between the covers of his deeply researched tome, where they are arranged in categories such as “Community and Culture,” “Special Collections” or “Faith and Spirit.” He’s mapped hundreds of other destinations on Every Museum of Greater Los Angeles, a website built to accompany the book. It’s where you can learn more about the 1920s oil boom at the Hathaway Ranch & Oil Museum in Santa Fe Springs or dig into the history of the orange grove at California Citrus State Historic Park in Riverside. From the Air Conditioning and Refrigeration Museum in downtown Los Angeles to the Taiwanese American History Museum in Irvine, you’re bound to find something that resonates with your own interests or answers a question you hadn’t yet thought to ask.
Because many of these museums are staffed by volunteers or located on private property, it’s best to call or check the website to confirm operating hours.
“For the most part,” says Lerew, “when I go to someone’s yard, a cool house, or display, unless they have a ton of no trespassing signs and gates and dogs and stuff, I feel like the worst thing that can happen is they’ll say, ‘Please leave.’”
He knows we’re in a cultural moment where it can be tough for folks to find agreement. In his travels, he’s encountered the red, the blue, and all shades in between, but he works hard to operate outside these lines. His standard response? “If I’m going into someone’s house or their place, who am I to question what they believe? That’s not what I’m there for. I’m there to listen and absorb what they’ve created or presented.”
Every time he plots a weekend road trip or spots an intriguing entrance sign, he’s operating from the belief that through careful attention and a purposeful search for points of affinity, we might find more common ground.
“If you’ve already identified things that you agree upon,” he says, “then that does open the door to eventually beginning to have harder conversations. You can acknowledge the other person’s humanity and accept that you disagree with them on some things.”
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Lerew’s work at the Library Foundation is a rare alignment of personal passion and profession, a fact he does not take for granted. It was his former boss and mentor, the late Ken Brecher, who, entranced by Lerew’s unique answers to “how’d you spend your day off,” tapped him to curate a 2018 show, “21 Collections: Every Object Has A Story.” Visitors were treated to a vast array of objects, including groupings of bird nests, pencils, doll hats and paper airplanes found exclusively on the streets of New York. A subsequent exploration of the loneliness epidemic, a subject unexpectedly deepened by the pandemic, resulted in the 2022 exhibit “Something in Common,” a survey of social clubs and unique organizations.
Hoping to highlight the vast archives of the Los Angeles Public Library, he continues to produce exhibitions and cultural initiatives that extend the library’s mission, which he paraphrases as “welcoming everyone and supporting curious people who have questions about anything and everything.”
Upcoming plans include an installation highlighting the library’s extensive collection of fragile pop-up books in a “fabulous way.” The construction of the world’s largest pop-up book is much anticipated. “It’s been in the back of my mind for a long time,” he says.
A visit to the library or to a local small museum are simple ways to get out of your comfort zone and see new things, but Lerew is quick to note that opportunities for connection may exist just outside your front door.
“In a big city, by and large we don’t know our neighbors, but if we remember to be curious about them, that curiosity can open us up to asking them for a favor or seeing the inside of their house or meeting their families. Those really gratifying experiences are too rare.”