Meet India Mandelkern of Altadena

Today we’d like to introduce you to India Mandelkern

India, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
You could call me a late bloomer. I graduated from college with no clue what I wanted to do. A few years later, I enrolled in a PhD program in History at UC Berkeley, but I always felt a bit like a fish out of water. While I loved the research and writing aspects of the program, I wasn’t so jazzed about becoming a professor churning out big clunky monographs for a (very tiny) audience of specialists. I knew that I wanted to blend historical research with creative nonfiction, but I didn’t quite have the confidence to jump in the pool. After earning my doctorate in 2015, I bounced around a little bit –– including an amusing stint as a restaurant consultant!

I stumbled on my first book topic completely by accident when I was a Mellon/ACLS fellow at LACMA. I had been fortunate enough to win a two-year appointment designed for humanities PhDs seeking careers beyond academia. My LACMA colleagues were tossing around ideas to commemorate the 10th anniversary of ‘Urban Light,’ the famous Chris Burden sculpture made out of streetlights at the museum’s south entrance, and I proposed to create a pocket “field guide” to the sculpture. Two months later, I cranked one out, and it became an overnight hit at the museum. That led me down a rabbit hole, so to speak, into the wacky world of street lighting.

My latest book, ‘Electric Moons: A Social History of Street Lighting’ explores the art and politics of public lighting. I use the streetlight as a “flashlight” to help us think about land use, mobility, crime and policing, municipal government, and most of all, the experience of living in LA. I’m fascinated by subcultures, and digging into the secret lives of Los Angeles street lighters, contractors, preservationists, and enthusiastic lamp collectors was a lot of fun to write about.

We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
No way! More like winding and bumpy. Two years in, I had to switch publishers for ‘Electric Moons’ due to a series of creative conflicts that I felt undermined my vision for the book, as well as the stories of the people I was writing about. Looking back now, I am 200% certain that this decision was the best thing that could have happened to the book project, but boy was that a stressful experience! That’s always my first piece of advice to writers –– when something doesn’t sit right with you, trust your gut!

I really do believe that when something is meant to be out in the world, life has a funny way of helping you out. Shortly after my first book deal fell through, I was introduced to my amazing publisher, JC Gabel of Hat and Beard Press, thanks to a conversation I struck up with a stranger while waiting in line for coffee. I met the talented Tom Bertolotti, who did much of the photography in the book, including the beautiful cover, by liking a photo he posted to Instagram (we both happened to follow a #streetlamp hashtag). Tom did a lot more than merely ‘prettify’ the book. He made its subject matter come alive.

We tend to think of LA as an isolating place (and it certainly can be). But the process of both writing and publishing this book brought me into the orbit of so many fascinating people, many of whom remain good friends to this day.

Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I’d say one big theme in my writing is the intersection between architecture and infrastructure, and what we can learn from looking at these things from different points of view. I’ve written about this in various capacities, and lately at LA Metro, where I run the agency’s blog. One aspect of the gig that I really like is getting lost in the agency’s archive and library. It’s a gold mine for a historian! If you know where to look, you’ll discover so many great LA stories –– everything from the origins of bus service to transit security to utopian transportation visions that were never built!

This is just one of the hats I wear. I’m also a certified sommelier –– I sold wine on a restaurant floor for more than two years –– and now run a boutique event business with a friend called Cote Brune and Blonde. My goal is to give people a vocabulary for tasting and appreciating wine, without dumbing it down. You can get creative in these environments in a way that isn’t possible in a restaurant. Recently, I was asked by an architecture nonprofit to pair wines with a 1960s modernist home! And of course, I write about wine, too. That’s the subject of my next book.

Where do you see things going in the next 5-10 years?
Let’s face it –– it’s always been tough to make a living writing books, even for those who top the bestseller lists. I’ve had a day job for much of my career. And while some people say that your day job should be nothing like your passion project or side hustle, I’ve personally always found creative inspiration from jobs I’ve had, whether it appeared in the form of a colleague, a conversation, or some inane, off-the-wall experience. Whatever you end up doing for work, you become immersed in a world that isn’t quite your own, and that can open doors in totally unexpected ways. The best ideas we could hope to dream up are often right under our noses. I guess I’ve always found the boundaries between art and life to be more slippery than they seem.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://indiamandelkern.com
• Instagram: @newarabella
• Other: https://cotebruneandblonde.com

Image Credits
Photo: Tom Bertolotti

Last photo: Alissa Bica