Judith Baca's "The Great Wall of Los Angeles," by Kristy Pollick
In the late 1970's and early 80's, The Great Wall of Los Angeles was hardly a scar, but rather a vibrant rebirth of a poverished, low income neighborhood in the San Bernadino Valley. The community was united and transpired by the colorful creative collaborative work on this long mural that transended the Tujunga canal for almost a mile. Sewn from the creativity and passion for California history, muralist Judy Baca, along with other artist, and the Social and Public Art Resource Center (SPARC) began the "beautification efforts" of this otherwise run down poverished neighborhood.
This project's purpose of this project, not only united the Californians who had been otherwise
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disconnected to each other in the City of Angels, but united all Californians with the people who defined their California History over the past decades.The project, taking many years of research to complete each historical segment, demanded collaboration of the minds and artists , but also the cooperation and unification of many impoverished youth, otherwise divided, and satturated in gang segregated affiliation and violence. This bold political art, though no longer can be appreciated in person due to be cemented over only a few years ago, still resignates with those who were involved in it's creation and the united representation it brought to this community and it's people. As well, it is still studied in classrooms and shared in the art world as one of the greatest mural's, sometimes referred to as, "The Great Wall." Baca's mural, painted in bright acrylics, a synthetic media often used in large scale paintings and murals, served her vision well as it was easy to work with and considered fairly durable in weather. While other options for media choice such as buon fresco, commonly a preferred method for wall painting, would have perhaps lasted longer, it's quick drying element to it's plaster binder would have served much more difficult to work with, especially for the youth, most likely un familiar or quick enough in the plaster-painiting techniques necessary working with fresco. Other options would include oil paint or Buon fresco's counterpart, dry freso. The dry fresco simply would have flaked as water seeped in and oil painting, while known for it's ability to blend, creating a continual scale of tones and hues, and three-dimensional effects would prove too slow to dry. Perhaps the wall would have lasted longer if Baca, in fact, did use the more durable method of buon fresco to make her work literally, "part of the wall, " but this would have changed the whole vision of the project that Baca envisioned. Baca's choice of acrylic completely supported her vision of bright, beautiful historical representations segment to segment that everyone could successfully partake in to produce this masterpiece of a mural. The mural is a stretch of bright colored faces, images and patterns that captures the attention of it viewers and personally engages them in the history of their people.
The vibrancy of contrasting warm and cool colors used, had a way of making the images jump out at the viewer. The viewer becomes part of the painting in all of it's large scale and three-dimentional greatness, personalizing the politcial messages that existed within the history of Californina's indigenous people, immigrants, minorites, women and multiple ethnicities among it's people . It was a celebration of community pride that transformed California and the eventually the lives of those involved in this triumphant experience. Baca's use of bold strong lines along with her color blocking technique made the focal objects seemingly jump out from their contrasting backgrounds. that like the story being told, could nt be ignored. Some of her work could be compared to the likings of Pop-art artist, Andy Warhol because of its bold color contrast and messages conveyed within the work. Baca used exaggerated colors to depict her subjects, and the well-defined shadows characteristic of pop art while entertaining a message. The paintings reflect a brightness in the contrast of darker background and white or very bright, light tints of color to hightlight the foreground objects or faces. Her use of patterns, like that in the braids in the , "Uprising of the Mujeres," or the curvy bold lines in the torch flames of the "Olymics 1983" are only a couple examples of how the artist gives the painting movement taking your eyes on a journey within each segment and from one segment to the
next. The images were magnificently taken from Bacas vision and design, to the director overseeing the project, and to the multiple painters, without losing any of the origianl beauty that was anticipated to unite California as well as the people from the broken streets of LA. It may once again be a considered a scar again like the "giant scar that divided an already divided city," at one time but within those wall lays a hidden moment in time when the streets were unified as a community. Baca's mural can serve as a model for future beauticfication efforts and unification projects for many cities to come, or at least we can hope.
Besides bright or dim colors, and fine or rough brush strokes, artists use centralized composition to convey their interpretations in "The Acrobat's Family with a Monkey," "Amercian Gothic," "The Water-Seller," and "The Third of May,1808.”
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During the late 1840's California did not show much promise or security. It had an insecure political future, its economic capabilities were severely limited and it had a population, other than Indians, of less than three thousand people. People at this time had no idea of what was to come of the sleepy state in the coming years. California would help boost the nation's economy and entice immigrants to journey to this mystical and promising land in hopes of striking it rich.
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