The Language Mobilization Factory and Darkroom- A Profile of Xrstine Franco
Looking back, I realized I was a kind of art-person connector from the time I was ten years old. My mom had just gotten divorced, and we were living in an apartment in Van Nuys — rather poor after the divorce. I coerced her to have all the people who parked in our underground garage clear out their stalls, because I had coordinated a little fair. Each parking stall became a different booth: a fishbowl toss, a free used-books table, a tie-dye station where people came and dyed t-shirts. My mom helped pull it together, but it was my creative ideas driving it. I hand-drew the flyers, went around the neighborhood, and we had a real crowd. So I was ten years old, and that, looking back, is just who I am — someone who connects people with art somehow.
Xrstine Franco graduated from art school in 1986 and promptly helped her parents start a food company — a detour from the arts that lasted years. It wasn't until her older son encouraged her that she opened a small gallery in the Pomona Arts Colony during its heyday, in 2011. She kept at it, eventually moving to Claremont. Then the pandemic hit, and she wasn't sure she'd continue. Feeling unmoored, she came to Sierra Madre to visit her son, who lived here, went to eat at Wisteria, and wandered past a lovely spot at 55 North Baldwin Avenue. The town charmed her. The space felt right. And it had room for something she'd always wanted: a darkroom.
She's been here two years now. What she found surprised her — not just the charm of the place, but the quality of its attention. On any given day at the gallery, a conversation might turn to philosophy, to the technical intricacies of painting, to photography, to someone's deepest hopes. I've never seen so many people eager to connect and to share, she says. The people here are just discovering each other and making more art. It's really an amazing thing.
The mission of the LMF — the Language Mobilization Factory and Darkroom — is that it's an all-inclusive gallery. Inclusive of all types of people, all races, creeds, cultures, and religious affiliations. And it includes all types of art, because we believe that all art is a language. We show painters, sculptors, mixed media artists, photographers, language artists, performance artists. The "mobilization" part means we get work moving — we get it seen, we help it sell, so artists can actually be supported. And the "factory" part means it's also a place to make. That's the Language Mobilization Factory and Darkroom.
Franco sees the gallery as one thread in a growing fabric. Mary of the Baldwin Avenue Gallery came and widened the web, she says; when Franco arrived, she made another connection, another bridge. Now One Cup Studio has joined them. Sierra Madre is becoming more of an art town — not that it wasn't, but it's increasing. The opportunities to make and think about art, visit art, see art, buy art — they're just increasing.
She also sees the gallery's role as practical and immediate: foot traffic, expanded evenings, a richer social experience for families who came here for safety and stayed for community. Free drop-in watercolor classes on summer Saturdays. Off-site micro workshops — including a dream board workshop she's developing — designed to get people out of their daily routines and into a more expansive relationship with their own imagination.
There's a spark of creativity at the origin of everything. A light bulb, a pair of shoes, a banking program — at some point there's a creative moment that starts it and makes it live. So if I were to show how that applies in different places…
A real estate office is connecting people with a sense of home. There's an art to the communication, and there's something visual and psychological about showing someone a space they could thrive in. There's an art to doing that.
An automobile specialist — that's design, obviously. Transportation and how you move through the world. There's beauty in the design of automobiles. I'd probably bring in a few designers from Art Center and talk about how they design cars: ergonomically, for safety, for comfort, but also for beauty. Art Center's industrial design program is extraordinary, and it all ties in.
An accountant has to do with logic, with numbers — but there's beauty in numbers too. The Fibonacci sequence, Mandelbrot sets — we actually had a show once about the intersection of numbers and art. One of those pieces was bought by someone in the room who still hasn't brought it back to be signed.
The police force is about safety, about community, about trust — the invisible thread that has to exist between people and the people who keep them safe. I think I'd engage the officers themselves in workshops. There's a lot of stress in that work, a lot of scrutiny, a lot of pressure to be a certain way. Making art together would be good for their mental health — and honestly, for the community too.
What I think creativity ultimately gives you is more options. When you're a creative person, you look for more solutions to problems. You develop an expanded dialogue with yourself about how to approach things. Making art helps you see fewer boundaries — it opens your mind. Even in health, I think that creativity helps you see more possibilities. That's what it does: it multiplies options.
Xrstine conducted this interview lying on her back. Running a new art gallery is a herculean task, and she was tired. Maybe that may open up even more possibilities for her gallery?
This article is part of an ongoing series celebrating the community members and makers of Sierra Madre. Find more like this one at www.sierramadreartwalk.com/blog”
By Elizabeth Converse