Pilar Tompkins Rivas was drawn to AltaMed because of something “near and dear” to her heart: community access to art. Tompkins Rivas, who joined AltaMed as Chief Curator and Vice President of Arts earlier this year, believes that AltaMed has done an exceptional job eliminating barriers to both health care and art.
Her role as Chief Curator involves the tremendous responsibility of selecting artwork that becomes part of the AltaMed Art Collection that will be displayed on the walls of AltaMed clinics and health facilities. The AltaMed Art Collection comprises 4,000 works of art that are featured on a rotating basis in AltaMed clinics throughout Southern California.
AltaMed cares for 700,000 people annually, who may be visiting their doctor two to three times per year. So we are talking about two million impressions per year, which rivals most art institutions in our area.
AltaMed Health Services Corporation
Tompkins Rivas sees herself as a passionate advocate for the healing power of art. “I believe that art is part of a healthy community,“ she says. “Bringing art into the clinics represents AltaMed's broader strategy for whole-person care. AltaMed offers many wraparound services that benefit patients and their communities, such as voter initiatives and college readiness programs for youth and teens. Similarly, I see art as a part of the overall work to create a healthier society, by breaking down barriers to access and engaging communities.”
In her role as Vice President of Arts, Tompkins Rivas will honor AltaMed's long history of collecting art, which spans more than 30 years, while also helping shape its future. The introduction of The Alta, the new art space in Montebello, allows Tompkins Rivas to develop programming that will create portals of access to the arts for even more people. “We have new initiatives that we're able to undertake at The Alta, where we take a broader look at art programming so we can make more of an impact on Los Angeles, the United States, and even internationally.”
Tompkins Rivas' vision for The Alta is a welcoming place where visitors can enjoy a rich array of programming around Chicano and Mexican art. She envisions a place where artists can participate in exhibitions, scholars can engage in a deep exploration of art that AltaMed is working to preserve, and audiences can enjoy films, as well as talks given by artists-in-residence. She is also looking forward to launching education and community programs in the years ahead.
Tompkins Rivas, who was previously the Chief Curator and Deputy Director of Curatorial and Collections at the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, believes that art offers endless opportunities to understand ourselves historically and culturally. “The AltaMed Art Collection gives visitors and scholars the incredible opportunity to look back at the collection, which has been assembled over decades, and ask: what stories does it have to tell us?” she says.
Tompkins Rivas is currently the Hannah & Russel Kully Distinguished Fellow in the History of American Art at The Huntington. Prior to joining the Lucas Museum, Tompkins Rivas held leadership and curatorial positions at the Vincent Price Art Museum, LACMA, and 18th Street Arts Center. She is completing a Ph.D. in cultural studies at Claremont Graduate University, where she also earned an M.A., and holds a B.A. in Latin American studies and a B.F.A. in studio art from the University of Texas at Austin.
