The engraved words “El Camino Art Gallery” are filled with orange paper flowers and decorated with paper monarch butterflies.
As one walks into the Art Gallery, instruments from all over the world are displayed, as well as a vibrant Dia de los Muertos installation.
At the tables toward the back of the gallery, art curator Dulce Stein sits with markers carefully lined up beside her as she works on a similar butterfly to the ones on the outside wall.
She picks up a yellow marker and fills in the yellow specks of a printed butterfly that will later be used to decorate the gallery.
For the past year, Stein has been El Camino College’s art curator. She is also the fine arts senator of the Associated Students Organization, the college’s student government.
“This is the center of the universe,” Stein said. “I love working here because I find healing and peace and beauty and blessings.”
Born in Mexico, some of Stein’s earliest memories are of her mother, who was an artist.
But Stein’s own career in the field began when she witnessed, firsthand, art used as a tool for learning.
As a mother of five, Stein volunteered at her children’s school in the Wiseburn School District in El Segundo.
When she realized supplies were being thrown out at the end of the school year, Stein spoke to her children’s teacher and saved the used workbooks and crayons.
The students were learning English as a second language.
With those workbooks and crayons, Stein and 12 of the students met at a library once a week to continue learning the language.
As someone also learning English herself, Stein faced challenges helping her students. When prompted to write paragraphs, she realized they felt overwhelmed.
So instead, she asked them to draw.
The students became excited about what they drew and were eager to share, but Stein gave them special instructions: “Wait, don’t tell me–write about it!”
Students wrote sentence after sentence explaining the story they drew.
“That impossible paragraph became a story,” Stein said.
As more families learned of the tutoring, the program grew. Stein simultaneously became more acquainted with local artists.
She curated her first art show at the Neutra Institute Gallery and Museum in Silver Lake after attending an art curator training program.
Stein curated 17 shows per year in the nine years that followed. Stein also served as co-chair for the Silver Lake Neighborhood Council Arts and Culture committee.
Neutra permanently closed the museum during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Eager to continue curating, Stein approached El Camino’s director of gallery and museum programming, Michael Miller, and offered her help to the college Art Gallery.
Miller agreed.
“She has a spirit of camaraderie and supporting the community,” Miller said.
Amongst colleagues and students who work closely with her, Stein is known to be very collaborative.
“She likes to get everybody involved as much as possible, I never feel like I’m being left out of any project she has an idea for,” Psychology major Sigh Santoro said.
Collaborators also acknowledge that she’s able to network and bring people from all over L.A. to El Camino.
“I really enjoy the energy that she brings to the table, she always comes up with such brilliant and engaging ideas,” Patrick Hahn, an English and creative writing major who works closely with Stein, said.
Some of Dulce’s most recent work includes the Feria de las Flores, or flowers fair, which was displayed in the Schauerman Library.
Stein has also recently collaborated with the fashion design department at El Camino, where she taught a workshop on embroidering the Indigenous garment known as huipiles.
Besides being an art curator, Stein is also taking classes this semester and plans to transfer in 2025 to major in art history.
“I find that you can make whatever you want with whatever you have,” Stein said. “The possibilities of creating something positive and healing at the same time are a blessing.”
