by Laura Garber
Leadership Hermosa unveiled its latest class project Saturday, a 700-square-foot painted mural at 601 Cypress Avenue celebrating the street’s history as a hub for artists and creators.
Artist Josh Barnes, who has lived in Hermosa for 12 years, incorporated elements tied to Cypress Avenue’s creative past, including surfboards honoring the shapers who work there and a soundboard nodding to the music studios located on the street.
“It’s just about getting to create something that has so much history and that I have so much respect for,” Barnes said.
Leadership 2026 class member and project manager Jake Iveland said the cohort centered its work on Cypress as an Arts District.
“We wanted to highlight this area and their identity as an Arts District and pay homage to everything involved on this street,” Iveland said.
The class considered 25 to 30 different project ideas, Iveland said, but many required public works approval, which faces a project backlog. Art became the quickest path forward.
“We had to get creative and gravitate towards Cypress and the Arts District,” Iveland said. “We all had some sort of art component involved with our pitches.”
Leadership Hermosa is a nine-month program in which participants learn about Hermosa Beach and develop a project to give back to the community.
For Iveland, the experience expanded his sense of the city.
“Before I joined Leadership, my little pocket was just the beach to play volleyball on Tuesday nights,” he said. “There is so much more in Hermosa; key individuals and stakeholders. I learned that it is really easy to run into City officials.” ER
