For Birthday, Artist Adds Pop of Color and Light in Los Angeles

Chabad artist Sheina Dorn has created another colorful, exciting street mural, to bring positivity to a place where there was formerly darkness.

Dorn has painted a vibrant mural of Shabbos Candles in the heart of Los Angeles, on the side of a building which she explains has great significance.

“For my birthday I wanted to give the community an unexpected gift. We’ve all been experiencing too many unexpected negative things in our lives and in our worlds,” Dorn explains. “So I painted a Shabbos Candles mural on a building that went unexpectedly up in flames last year. The goal was to turn unexpected negative flames into unexpected positive ones,” she says.

This huge 15’x25’ feet mural is right in the heart of the Jewish neighborhood of Los Angeles, on Pico Boulevard at the corner of Wetherly.

Passersby from all spectrums of the Jewish world stopped to congratulate Dorn as she painted the eye-catching mural, saying “Wow, Stunning!” and “It’s Epic!”

“The specialness of this shining mural is that not only does it have a positive message for everyone to ‘Spread Light,’ it also will have Shabbat Candle lighting time filled in with chalk each week by the graduating class of Bais Rebbe of Los Angeles,” Dorn says. The girls regularly do mivtzoim outreach there every week, giving out candles to Jewish women.

“A neighbor on the street reached out to me via jewishstreetart.com asking if her kids can be involved in updating the Shabbat times. They enthusiastically took upon switching the times on all vacation weeks so the sign will always be updated,” Dorn says.

Dorn grew up on Shlichus, and says her “inner Shlucha” has her using her artistic talent to spread Judaism.

“I work to create my art in a way that’s trendy and cool, so that a struggling Neshama just might be inspired by it and light Shabbos candles again or for the first time,” she says.

“I’m slowly changing Los Angeles, one wall at a time,” Dorn says.

Dorn is in the process of opening her own Art Studio which will not only allow her to produce more art, but she is “looking for it to become a kosher place for teens and adults to escape into their creative world as well,” she says.