On one recent weekend, Todd Lerew drove nearly 600 miles round-trip in order to celebrate the opening of Barstow’s California Clown Museum and commemorate the last days of the Burlesque Hall of Fame in Las Vegas. A few weeks later, he joined celebrants at Ratha Yatra — the 49th annual Festival of the Chariots, a Venice Beach celebration of Indian cultural heritage. He’s jammed with Celtic musicians, cheered for the riders of the Palm Springs Hot Rodeo and, for the past nine years until it was lost in the 2024 Line fire, spent time as a volunteer fire lookout at Keller Peak in the San Bernardino National Forest.

“I think I have an overactive curiosity muscle,” Lerew says.

This muscle nudged him across the country to receive an MFA from Cal Arts, powers his work as director of special proj

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