The Art of Service
An artist finds creative and spiritual fulfillment in Leimert Park by serving individuals experiencing homelessness.
It’s easy to overlook the white GMC cargo van parked at the intersection of Degnan Boulevard and 43rd Street, in the cultural epicenter of South Los Angeles’ Leimert Park. The artist inside, however, known in the community for her sharp tongue and generous heart, is anything but unassuming.
“They call me Yogi,” she says, a playful grin spreading across her face. “They see me and they yell, ‘There goes Yogi,’ and tell me whatever it is that they need.”
Yogita Ganeshan, a charismatic minimalist artist, always knew her future would involve service and art. Her guru told her so. She couldn’t predict how her passions would intersect when she moved to Los Angeles five years ago.
In 2012, Ganeshan obtained a film degree from the Academy of Art in San Francisco, where she became interested in the issue of homelessness. Due to the high amount of displaced people in Los Angeles, Ganeshan was drawn to the city. Here, she met Mata Priya, the founder of New Life Society, a nonprofit serving individuals experiencing poverty or homelessness.
Ganeshan formed a close friendship with Priya. They both followed the Hindu faith and valued altruism above all else. For three years, Ganeshan was able dedicate most of her time to New Life Society. Then, Priya died in 2015, effectively putting an end to the nonprofit. But Ganeshan wasn’t deterred.
“You couldn’t find another woman like her, she was a force,” Ganeshan says, looking up toward the sky. “I had to do right by her.”
The artist continued Priya’s efforts on a smaller scale, working from her van in Venice and Santa Monica. The altruistic nomad later added Leimert Park to her route, providing food and clothing to those without.
Ganeshan sells her own artwork to fund her mobile lifestyle.
“I make everything. I make dolls, mandalas, just whatever comes to my head, or if I’m lucky, to my heart,” she says, opening the dual doors at the rear of the van, revealing the cluttered array of paper, fabrics and supplies. “I’m a starving artist,” Ganeshan says with a laugh. “So, I use pretty much any canvas that I can find.”
Selling art also affords her the supplies necessary to tailor donated clothing and buy food for the homeless and impoverished.
“Everything goes back into this — it’s my life’s work,” she says, while organizing long, green pole beans and other vegetables in the back seat to deliver along her long route.
She starts her daily rounds in Venice in the morning. Ganeshan drives through the city’s back roads, assisting regulars and offering her services to any new faces who approach her van. By noon, she’s on her way to Santa Monica, stopping at farmers markets for inexpensive produce and scouting thrift stores for clothes to give out. The stops differ daily, depending on the needs of Ganeshan’s shifting patrons. Today, her last stop is in Leimert Park.
Ganeshan adjusts the tattered black scarf on her head so it shields her better from the blazing midday sun. She’s leaning into the belly of her van from the open back doors, organizing the used clothes that are strewn everywhere. She grabs a perfectly folded stack of clothing in the corner of the van.
This outfit, she says, has been tailored to fit a woman she works with who needs business-casual attire for an upcoming job interview.
Ganeshan sifts through the van’s clutter, the seats barely visible underneath crumpled pieces of paper. Gold bracelets engraved with Sanskrit clang together. She pulls out a colorful sketch of a mandala she recently made. It signifies her new mission, she says, to “challenge the root of violence and displacement.” Art is both her income and her outlet.
The artist intends for her work to emphasize mindfulness and self-betterment. Leimert Park has the seventh-highest crime rate in Los Angeles County, according to the Los Angeles Times. Ganeshan believes that here the key to change comes from within.
“People have to know how to live with each other, and then they’ll gain insight as how to live with themselves,” she says.
The theme of community threads most of Ganeshan’s pieces together. The next painting she pulled from the van is a vibrant watercolor of women walking to market with produce baskets tied to their heads.
“You have to ask yourself, why is it that every other day, I feel like it’s just me alone in the world?” she says. “Maybe if you investigate what’s going on with you, you’ll be better off.”
Ganeshan’s manner of speaking is like performance art. She was born and raised in Guyana. Her indigenous Wapishana heritage is audible in the tall vowels of her words. As the muscular woman, clad in a self-tailored gold, satin dress, preaches to an audience of one, her hips sway, every word punctuated with a powerful, melodic cadence.
While growing up in Guyana, Ganeshan says she learned the most important community is the one at home, the family. She pulls out another didactic painting. This parchment paper watercolor illustrates a hen feeding her chicks, a depiction of the symbiotic relationship between a parent and their children.
“I don’t care if you got money or not. That’s key — I don’t care if your parents were drugged out. I don’t even care if you were a victim of compromise,” she says. “Once you can forgive, you can heal.”
New Life Society used to feed up to 100 people every day of the week. These days Ganeshan helps roughly half as many, but with the extra time she includes lessons in self-care, a practice she believes transcends basic necessities.
The film student turned craftswoman hopes to do more under the moniker New Life Society.
“The goal is always to help more people, but to help them in a way that’s sustainable. If I cook for them, they end up back where they started. I do something different — I teach them to help themselves.”
Other artists in Leimert Park are thankful for the woman in the van. Ganeshan drives business to their shops, and they say she often rolls down her window to yell affirmations at their customers.
“Yogi is a light, she brings something unique to Leimert Park,” says Aminah Muhammad, from Queen Aminah Fashion. “She’s just highlighting all of the good that already exists. She’s bringing it forward.”
Ganeshan waves at Muhammad as she pulls out of the Leimert Park parking stall. She can’t stay any longer. First there’s that job interview outfit to drop off and then early to bed. Her delivery route starts again at dawn.
