The holidays are starting, and so is a festive month in Los Angeles art.

Two strong shows took the stage at Torrance Art Museum: performance and mixed media of all kinds. In the main gallery, Forum 1 included a wide selection of artists exciting a packed-house crowd. Guests nibbled on brownie bites and cheese and crackers, sipping wine while watching two performance pieces: Cindy Vallejo’s ongoing “Lengua Materna/Mother Tongue” featured a murmured set piece that focused a time in her childhood when her use of the Spanish language was taken from her.

Katie Shanks and Stephanie Sherwood at TAM

In the museum’s lobby, wearing fairy wings with images of meat parts, Katie Shanks and Stephanie Sherwood performed an excerpt from their upcoming full-length “Meat Market: On the Cutting Board” to a rapt crowd. Overheard: “If I wasn’t a vegetarian now, I would be converted.”

Max Presneill with curator Lydia Michelle Espinoza

The art exhibition itself culminated a 10-month program featuring 18 young art professionals mentored by more established art pros. Tu Nguyen’s living plant and silkworm sculpture, and Elizabeth Munzon’s hot pink rabbits drew lots of attention.

Floral spiral at TAM

In Gallery Two, the beautiful group show Permutations, curated by Stephanie Sherwood and Joshua Oduga, featured work that evolves throughout the exhibition, such as Randi Hokett’s glittery mineral solutions and crystal constructs. Navigating a lush flora spiral on the floor, viewers spent time, as one attendee related “trying to figure out how they’ll change.”

Artist Lauren Kasmer by her work

At George Billis in Culver City, Bonita Helmer and Lauren Kasmer presented wonderful otherworldly works, in both separate and shared exhibitions. Helmer’s ethereal abstracts In the Midst of Chaos were championed by other artists, gallerists and viewers sipping sparkling water; Kasmer’s Re:Creation focused on images of nature and the metaphysical in photographic and multimedia works that drew gallerygoers to contemplate.

Genie Davis, Loren Philip, Catherine Ruane by Helmer’s work

The real buzz was in the Project Room in the back of the gallery, where Kasmer and Helmer together presented Merge. Here gallery lights were dimmed—initial viewer reactions as to “why are the lights off?” were soon stilled to hushed watching—while Kasmer’s projected images dazzled and danced over Helmer’s works, adding a stunning dimensionality.

Vivian Maier’s photo

At KP Projects, now in a spacious new location but still on La Brea Avenue, the gallery’s inaugural show featured a great collection of works by photographer Vivian Maier. Maier, a superlative and posthumously discovered street photographer, is something of a cause celeb, with a documentary film about her released a few years back. Actor Tim Roth hosted KP’s exhibition, which included cocktails, fashionably dressed and hipster-cool attendees, and over 80 photographs in color and black and white; as well as an appearance by John Maloof, the man who first discovered Maier’s work.

A happy way to start the holidays.