“So… Back in the day, late 70’s as I recall, when I first started teaching myself to draw and paint, I was living on the boardwalk of Venice Beach, painting and working with pastels, having a grand time, trying to figure out how to pay the rent and stay out of trouble at the same time. I was taking night art classes at Santa Monica City College and assisting various muralists and decorative painters on their projects, and doing the odd sign gig and menu-board as I could get, and the occasional faux-finish painting project for local interior decorators, when one day I passed by this old art-deco municipal building with a sign out front that read S.P.A.R.C."
“I pulled into the parking lot and went in side.
It was an old police station!
The lobby was set up like an art gallery and the jail-cells were converted into offices and paint-stations!
I looked at some of their literature and saw that !they were all about mural painting!
Just what I was interested in!
I attended a few workshops and tried to get in on their projects... but it was all volunteer work!
And besides, they weren’t interested in my portfolio of signs and graphics and decorative work, and since I needed to “follow-the-money”, I did.”
As Bob Marley says:
“When I Wurk, Man, I must be Pay’ed!”
"But I liked what they were doing over at S.P.A.R.C.,
and I saw that there was a way to make murals in the community, and that Public Art could have a real positive impact, and that’s why I was slinging my brush…to have a positive and uplifting effect on peoples’ environments!"
It was an old police station!
The lobby was set up like an art gallery and the jail-cells were converted into offices and paint-stations!
I looked at some of their literature and saw that !they were all about mural painting!
Just what I was interested in!
I attended a few workshops and tried to get in on their projects... but it was all volunteer work!
And besides, they weren’t interested in my portfolio of signs and graphics and decorative work, and since I needed to “follow-the-money”, I did.”
As Bob Marley says:
“When I Wurk, Man, I must be Pay’ed!”
"But I liked what they were doing over at S.P.A.R.C.,
and I saw that there was a way to make murals in the community, and that Public Art could have a real positive impact, and that’s why I was slinging my brush…to have a positive and uplifting effect on peoples’ environments!"
“I eventually hooked up with a local Graphics Painting Department for an interior design firm out of Century City, and a Restaurant Developer in Santa Monica converting washed-up steak-houses into hip and whacky Beer-Bars and Burger-Joints in collage towns, traveling all around the mid-west.
Those two connections eventually led me on a wild and crazy mural painting career all across the western United States, and introduced me to several amazing artists and mentors who eventually became my good friends." -Roberto Quintana
Those two connections eventually led me on a wild and crazy mural painting career all across the western United States, and introduced me to several amazing artists and mentors who eventually became my good friends." -Roberto Quintana
" …so, I guess I owe it all to Pamela Brown,
(and S.P.A.R.K.!)” -RQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9cweBs-tdaA
(and S.P.A.R.K.!)” -RQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9cweBs-tdaA
SOCIAL AND PUBLIC ART RESOURCE CENTER
Creating Sites of Public Memory Since 1976
Art | Community | Education | Social Justice
https://www.judybaca.com/about/
Dr. Judith F. Baca, one of America’s leading visual artists, has been creating public art for four decades.
Powerful in size and subject matter, Baca’s murals bring art to where people live and work.
In 1974, Baca founded the City of Los Angeles’ first mural program, which produced over 400 murals and employed thousands of local participants, and evolved into an arts organization known as the Social and Public Art Resource Center (SPARC). She continues to serve as SPARC’S artistic director and focuses her creative energy in the UCLA@SPARC Digital/Mural Lab, employing digital technology to promote social justice and participatory public arts projects. She is an emeritus Professor of the University of California Los Angeles, where she was a senior professor in Chicana/o Studies and World Art and Cultures Departments from 1980 until 2018.
Beginning with the awareness that the land has memory, she creates art that is shaped by an interactive relationship of history, people and place. Baca’s public artworks focus on revealing and reconciling diverse peoples’ struggles for their rights and affirm the connections of each community to place. She gives form to monuments that rise up out of neighborhoods. Together with the people who live there, they co-create monumental public art places that become “sites of public memory.”
Baca has stood for art in service of equity for all people. Her public arts initiatives reflect the lives and concerns of populations that have been historically disenfranchised, including women, the working poor, youth, the elderly and immigrant communities, throughout Los Angeles and increasingly in national and international venues.
Her most well-known work is The Great Wall of Los Angeles. It is located in San Fernando Valley,
the mural spans half a mile and still is a work in progress engaging another generation of youth.
The mural-making process exemplified community involvement, employing more than 400 youth and their families from diverse social and economic backgrounds, artists, oral historians and scholars.
In 2017 the Great Wall of Los Angeles received national recognition on the National Registry of Historic Places by the US Department of the Interior.
In 2012, the Los Angeles Unified School District named a school after her called the Judith F. Baca Arts Academy, located in Watts, her birthplace.
She is a recipient of the Guggenheim Fellowship, the United States Artist Rockefeller Fellowship and over 50 awards from various community groups.
Dr. Judith F. Baca, one of America’s leading visual artists, has been creating public art for four decades.
Powerful in size and subject matter, Baca’s murals bring art to where people live and work.
In 1974, Baca founded the City of Los Angeles’ first mural program, which produced over 400 murals and employed thousands of local participants, and evolved into an arts organization known as the Social and Public Art Resource Center (SPARC). She continues to serve as SPARC’S artistic director and focuses her creative energy in the UCLA@SPARC Digital/Mural Lab, employing digital technology to promote social justice and participatory public arts projects. She is an emeritus Professor of the University of California Los Angeles, where she was a senior professor in Chicana/o Studies and World Art and Cultures Departments from 1980 until 2018.
Beginning with the awareness that the land has memory, she creates art that is shaped by an interactive relationship of history, people and place. Baca’s public artworks focus on revealing and reconciling diverse peoples’ struggles for their rights and affirm the connections of each community to place. She gives form to monuments that rise up out of neighborhoods. Together with the people who live there, they co-create monumental public art places that become “sites of public memory.”
Baca has stood for art in service of equity for all people. Her public arts initiatives reflect the lives and concerns of populations that have been historically disenfranchised, including women, the working poor, youth, the elderly and immigrant communities, throughout Los Angeles and increasingly in national and international venues.
Her most well-known work is The Great Wall of Los Angeles. It is located in San Fernando Valley,
the mural spans half a mile and still is a work in progress engaging another generation of youth.
The mural-making process exemplified community involvement, employing more than 400 youth and their families from diverse social and economic backgrounds, artists, oral historians and scholars.
In 2017 the Great Wall of Los Angeles received national recognition on the National Registry of Historic Places by the US Department of the Interior.
In 2012, the Los Angeles Unified School District named a school after her called the Judith F. Baca Arts Academy, located in Watts, her birthplace.
She is a recipient of the Guggenheim Fellowship, the United States Artist Rockefeller Fellowship and over 50 awards from various community groups.
Here’s a link to Judy’s website
with a great 'moving banner' of the full-length
of the “Great Wall” mural!
...and a few more videos,
…and a lot more about Judy and her many murals!.
(in the link, Scroll down to the banner, It’s really cool!)
https://judybaca.com/art/great-wall-of-los-angeles-1974-present/
with a great 'moving banner' of the full-length
of the “Great Wall” mural!
...and a few more videos,
…and a lot more about Judy and her many murals!.
(in the link, Scroll down to the banner, It’s really cool!)
https://judybaca.com/art/great-wall-of-los-angeles-1974-present/
YouTube Video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4dimAaP30E4&t=75s
Muralist Judy Baca & Social and Public Art Resource Center (SPARC),
NEIGHBORS episode:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4dimAaP30E4&t=75s
Muralist Judy Baca & Social and Public Art Resource Center (SPARC),
NEIGHBORS episode:
The Great Wall of Los Angeles
is located in
the Tujunga Wash Flood Control Channel (LA River)
in the San Fernando Valley – Studio City / Valley Glen.
Near LA Valley College and Grant High School.
North of the Ventura Freeway (101),
between the 405 and 170.
From the 101, Exit on Coldwater Canyon Ave.
and head North.
The Great Wall is on
Coldwater Canyon Avenue between Burbank Blvd.
and Oxnard St.
Park along the street and walk the 1/2 mile mural
and enjoy!
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