Detroit and San Cristobal, Mexico. Early work and California After graduating from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Mangrum traveled for over four years in Europe and throughout the United States. Eventually he settled in Laguna Beach, California and began to arrange floral and natural materials into installations in public spaces. These often, circular forms have been called mandalas, though Mangrum has more recently chosen to describe them as biomorphic or organic installations. His first installations in Laguna Beach stemmed from a desire to draw attention to the impending San Joaquin Hills Toll Road(California State Route 73) in 1994. The road would divide one of the last major open green spaces in Orange County, California. His newly found activism propelled his determination to examine environmental issues in the forum of public art. He began to create organic forms at Main Beach Park, a public space in Laguna Beach. His art work was swept up by the Parks Department, so he continued to create new pieces and they were relentlessly swept up again. This resulted in a visit to a city council meeting by Mangrum. The council demanded that he provide one million dollars worth of liability insurance. The story was picked up by the L.A. Times and thereby sparked further discussion about art, its expression and the right to protest. Mangrum was invited to produce his first solo show at San Francisco State University in 1995 . This show marked his first usage of found objects, auto parts and money in addition to his organic materials. It consisted of five biomorphic forms on the ground with a wall painting in binary code of the story of the Lorax by Dr. Seuss, contained in an enlarged image of Mangrum’s thumbprint. Once Mangrum had acquired insurance, he returned to Laguna beach and created installations titled “Creation, Capitalism and Corrective Surgery,” and “Echoes of Corrective Surgery” based on his observations of life in Southern California. A second L.A. Times article in 1995 caught the eye of art gallerist, Daniel Arvizu, who invited Mangrum to install a solo show at his gallery in Santa Ana, California. Mangrum created an ephemeral installation inspired by Bosch’s The Garden of Earthly Delights using molasses (as a substitute for oil) and orange slices in an interpretation of observations of the oil industry and its environmental “purgatories” in Orange County. Mangrum continued his use of Molasses in