Judy Baca
Encyclopedia
Judith Francisca Baca is an American artist
, activist
, and University of California, Los Angeles
professor
of fine art
s. She is the founder and executive director of the Venice
, California
-based Social and Public Art Resource Center
(SPARC), a community art
s center, and is best known as the director of the mural
project that created one of the largest murals in the world, the Great Wall of Los Angeles
.
on September 20, 1946 to Mexican American
parents, her father Valentino Marcel, a musician, whom she never met, and her mother Ortencia, who worked at a tire factory. She was raised in Watts, Los Angeles
(a predominately Mexican-American neighborhood), in an all-female home, with her mother, aunts Rita and Delia, and her grandmother Francisca. Her grandmother was a herbal healer and practiced curanderismo
, which profoundly influenced her sense of indigenous
Chicano
culture.
In 1952, her mother remarried Clarence Ferrari. After, the three of them moved to Pacoima, Los Angeles. This neighborhood was drastically different then Watts, as the Mexican-Americans were minorities and Ferrari, of Italian descent, did not want Spanish to be spoken in the house.
in 1964.
She then attended California State University, Northridge
(CSUN) and earned her Bachelor's degree in 1969 and Master's degree in art in 1979. While there, she learned and studied modern abstract art
. She wanted to make art for her family and the people in Watts, but she knew they didn't go to galleries. "I thought to myself, if I get my work into galleries, who will go there? People in my family hadn't ever been in a gallery in their entire lives. My neighbors never went to galleries...And it didn't make sense to me at the time to put art behind some guarded wall."
, an anti-war
action of the Chicano Movement
. The principal of the school believed teachers should not take part in the protest marches, and she was fired with several other teachers.
After being fired, she thought she could never get another job because of her involvement in the protests. She would find her next job at the Los Angeles Parks and Recreation Department. Her new job consisted of her teaching art for a summer program in the city's public park. In Boyle Heights, Los Angeles, at this time, had the most Mexican-Americans and had the highest number of gangs in the country. Members of different gangs loitered in the parks she worked at, and she noticed the graffiti and she knew it was territorial markings. "You could read a wall and learn everything you needed to know about that community." One of her favorites was, "I'd rather spend one day as a lion than a hundred as a lamb."
. Mi Abuelita ("My Grandmother"), the mural depicted a Mexican-American grandmother with her arms outstretched as if to give a hug. "This work recognized the primary position of the matriarch in Mexican families. It also marked the first step in the development of a unique collective process that employs art to mediate between rival gang members competing for public space and public identity."
This project was difficult because she had to get the different members to cooperate with each other. Every day, problems arose with gang members who were not on the mural team and they didn't like what Baca was doing. They would attempt to interfere with the project, by threatening team members and vandalizing the work site. Local police did not like the idea of rival gang members together, fearing it would spark gang violence. She also began to work on the mural without permission from the city or the manager of Hollenbeck Park, which arouse questions from her supervisor and other city officials.
Despite all of the trouble, Baca wanted to finish the project. She had lookouts who would signal the mural team if rival gang members were headed toward the work site or if the police were coming. One day, a city official came to the park because he had been getting complaints about the project. After seeing the progress being done and the team members working so well with each other, he gave Baca permission from the city to complete the mural. "The city was amazed at the work I was doing, making murals with kids who scared directors out of neighborhood centers."
After its completion, the community loved it. Baca said, "Everybody related to it. People brought candles to that site. For 12 years people put flowers at the base of the grandmother image." Las Vistas Nuevas would complete a total of three murals that summer.
After the murals, she was offered a job in 1970 as the director of a new citywide mural program. She was in charge of creating the program from ground up, including choosing where murals go, designing the murals, and supervising the mural painting teams. They would consist of teenagers who were in trouble with the police. Members of the original Las Vistas Nuevas were hired to help run the multi-site program. This group would go on to paint more than 500 murals.
With this new job, she encountered her first problems with censorship
. People in the neighborhoods of the murals wanted to show all parts of life of the neighborhood, the good and bad. The city, however, did not want any controversy shown on the murals. One example was when the city objected to a mural that showed people struggling with police, and they threatened to stop funding the program if Baca did not remove it. Baca said, "I really liked the idea that the work could not be owned by anyone. So, therefore it wasn't going to be interesting to the rich or to the wealthy, and it didn't have to meet the caveats of art that museums would be interested in. Rather than give in , she formed the Social and Public Art Resource Center
(SPARC) in 1976 to continue funding the creation of murals in public.
. She was hired by the United States Army Corps of Engineers
to help improve the area around a San Fernando Valley
flood control channel called the Tujunga Wash
. It's essentially a ditch that contained a large concrete retaining wall. Her idea for a mural was to paint a history of the city of Los Angeles
, but not the version found in history books. The events that were overlooked were the ones that interested her. "It was an excellent place to bring youth of varied ethnic backgrounds from all over the city to work on an alternate view of the history of the U.S. which included people of color who had been left out of American history books." Baca also said the defining metaphor of the mural would be "It is a tattoo on the scar where the river once ran."
Baca was inspired by Los tres Grandes ("The Three Greats"), an novel about the three of the most influential Mexican muralists: Diego Rivera
, David Alfaro Siqueiros
, and José Clemente Orozco
. In 1977, she attended a workshop at the Taller Siqueiros in Cuernavaca
, Mexico
, to learn muralism techniques and see their murals in person. Even though all three were deceased at the time, she was able to work with some of Siqueiros' former students. She also interviewed people about their lives, family histories, ancestry, and stories they remember hearing from their older relatives, as well as consulting history experts. From this, she was able to create the design for the mural. Some of the things portrayed in the mural was the first time they were blazoned in public, including but not limited to the Dust Bowl
Journey, Japanese American internment
during World War II
, Zoot Suit Riots
, and the Freedom Bus Rides.
Baca wanted the project to be done by people as diverse as the ones that were to be painted. She had people from all different ages and backgrounds participate. Some were scholars and artists, but the majority were just community members. "Making a mural is like a big movie production, it can involve 20 sets of scaffolding, four trucks, and food for 50 people." 400 people came out and help paint the mural, which took seven summers to complete, and was finished in 1984.
in 1980, and left in 1994. The next year, she implemented the Muralist Training Workshop to teach people the techniques she had picked up. She also was a professor at California State University, Monterey Bay
from 1994 to 1996, where she co-founded the Visual & Public Arts Institute Department.
In 1996, she moved to University of California, Los Angeles
(UCLA) and took on multiple roles. In 1993, she co-founded UCLA's Cesar Chavez Center for Interdisciplinary Studies, an institution for which she serves as vice chair.
In 1998, she served as a master artist in residence with the Role of the Arts in Civic Dialogue at Harvard University
in 1990. The idea was when the panels traveled the world, the host country would add their own panel to the collection. Some of the countries include Russia
, Israel
/Palestine
, Mexico
, and Canada
.
In 1988, Mayor of Los Angeles Tom Bradley
commissioned her to create the Neighborhood Pride Program, a citywide project to paint murals. The project employed over 1,800 at-risk youth and is responsible for over 105 murals throughout the city.
In 1996, she created La Memoria de Nuestra Tierra ("Our Land Has Memory") for the Denver International Airport
. This one was personal for Baca, as her grandparents fled Mexico during the Mexican Revolution
and came to La Junta, Colorado
, Colorado
. The mural "not only to tell the forgotten stories of people who, like birds or water, traveled back and forth across the land freely, before there was a line that distinguished which side you were from, but to speak to our shared human condition as temporary residents of the earth...The making of this work was an excavation of a remembering of their histories." It was completed in 2000.
She conducted research by interviewing residents and lead a workshop with University of Southern Colorado students. She found a picture in a garage in Pueblo
by Juan Espinosa, photographer and founder El Diario de la Gente, Boulder, Colorado, of an important meeting between Corky Gonzales
of the Colorado Crusade for Justice and Cesar Chavez
of the United Farm Workers
, and their agreement to bring the Delano grape strike
to Colorado.
In June 2008, Judy spoke at the "Against the Wall: The ruin and renewal of LA's murals" panel held at Morono Kiang Gallery across the street from the famous "Pope of Broadway" mural. In that same year, she made the Cesar Chavez Monument Arch of Dignity, Equality, and Justice. It is located at San Jose State University
. It has a portrait of Cesar Chavez
, Mahatma Gandhi
, and Dolores Huerta
.
, sponsored by the Los Angeles Parks and Recreation Department (her employer at the time). The mural depicts an Abuelita ("Grandmother") with outstretched arms, like she is ready for a hug.
. Sponsored by the First Unitarian Church. The mural features portrait likenesses of woman's rights activist and founder of the church, Caroline Severance, Unitarian Martyr Miguel Servetus, and others.
is thought to be the largest mural in the world. The mural depicts California's history, with some controversial subjects painted for the first time in public.
Baca's work "Danzas Indigenas" at the Metrolink station in Baldwin Park, California
contains a quote from the Chicana writer Gloria Anzaldua reads: "This land was Mexican once, was Indian always and is, and will be again," and "It was better before they came." About the first quote, Joseph Turner of Save Our State
stated, "It's seditious. It essentially talks about returning this land to Mexico." About the second quote SOS claims the referent of "they" is "white people"
On May 14, 2005, approximately 25 members of Save Our State demonstrated, with 300 counter-demonstrators.
By monumentalizing the hidden, or often forgotten, workforce of Los Angeles, Baca successfully creates a mural that forces the public to recognize the unrecognizable.
Baca worked with Southern Ute and Chicano Youth of Durango Colorado to create this mural. It was produced in SPARC's Digital Mural Lab.
Developed with youth participants and Central American scholars on the migration of the 1980’s of Central Americans to Los Angeles.
Sponsored by City of Los Angeles and SPARC.
campus and has murals of farm workers, Cesar Chavez
, Mahatma Gandhi
, and Delores Huerta.
Baca's grandfather, Teodoro Baca, escaped troops that wanted to enlist him in Pancho Villa
's army. He owned a store and land in Parral, Chihuahua
. A simultaneous robbery of Baca's grandmother at the store and Teodoro on a train convinced the couple that they should go North. Seferino Baca and Teodoro settled at the base of the Purgatoire River
.
Artist
An artist is a person engaged in one or more of any of a broad spectrum of activities related to creating art, practicing the arts and/or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse is a practitioner in the visual arts only...
, activist
Activism
Activism consists of intentional efforts to bring about social, political, economic, or environmental change. Activism can take a wide range of forms from writing letters to newspapers or politicians, political campaigning, economic activism such as boycotts or preferentially patronizing...
, and University of California, Los Angeles
University of California, Los Angeles
The University of California, Los Angeles is a public research university located in the Westwood neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, USA. It was founded in 1919 as the "Southern Branch" of the University of California and is the second oldest of the ten campuses...
professor
Professor
A professor is a scholarly teacher; the precise meaning of the term varies by country. Literally, professor derives from Latin as a "person who professes" being usually an expert in arts or sciences; a teacher of high rank...
of fine art
Fine art
Fine art or the fine arts encompass art forms developed primarily for aesthetics and/or concept rather than practical application. Art is often a synonym for fine art, as employed in the term "art gallery"....
s. She is the founder and executive director of the Venice
Venice, Los Angeles, California
Venice is a beachfront district on the Westside of Los Angeles, California, United States. It is known for its canals, beaches and circus-like Ocean Front Walk, a two-and-a-half mile pedestrian-only promenade that features performers, fortune-tellers, artists, and vendors...
, California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
-based Social and Public Art Resource Center
Social and Public Art Resource Center
The Social and Public Art Resource Center is a non-profit community arts center based in Venice, California. SPARC hosts exhibitions, sponsors workshops and murals, and lobbies for the preservation of Los Angeles-area murals and other works of public art...
(SPARC), a community art
Community art
Community Art could be loosely defined as a way of creating art in which professional artists collaborate more or less intensively with people who don't normally actively engage in the arts. Community arts, also sometimes known as "dialogical art", "community-engaged" or "community-based art,"...
s center, and is best known as the director of the mural
Mural
A mural is any piece of artwork painted or applied directly on a wall, ceiling or other large permanent surface. A particularly distinguishing characteristic of mural painting is that the architectural elements of the given space are harmoniously incorporated into the picture.-History:Murals of...
project that created one of the largest murals in the world, the Great Wall of Los Angeles
Great Wall of Los Angeles
The Great Wall of Los Angeles is a mural designed by Judith Baca and executed by community youth and artists coordinated by the Social and Public Art Resource Center...
.
Early life
Baca was born in Huntington ParkHuntington Park
-In the United States:* Huntington Park, California* Huntington Park , a park in Newport News, Virginia* Huntington Park , a minor league baseball stadium in Columbus, Ohio...
on September 20, 1946 to Mexican American
Mexican American
Mexican Americans are Americans of Mexican descent. As of July 2009, Mexican Americans make up 10.3% of the United States' population with over 31,689,000 Americans listed as of Mexican ancestry. Mexican Americans comprise 66% of all Hispanics and Latinos in the United States...
parents, her father Valentino Marcel, a musician, whom she never met, and her mother Ortencia, who worked at a tire factory. She was raised in Watts, Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
(a predominately Mexican-American neighborhood), in an all-female home, with her mother, aunts Rita and Delia, and her grandmother Francisca. Her grandmother was a herbal healer and practiced curanderismo
Curandero
A curandero or curandeiro is a traditional folk healer or shaman in Latin America, who is dedicated to curing physical or spiritual illnesses. The role of a curandero or curandera can also incorporate the roles of psychiatrist along with that of doctor and healer. Many curanderos use Catholic...
, which profoundly influenced her sense of indigenous
Indigenous peoples of the Americas
The indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian inhabitants of North and South America, their descendants and other ethnic groups who are identified with those peoples. Indigenous peoples are known in Canada as Aboriginal peoples, and in the United States as Native Americans...
Chicano
Chicano
The terms "Chicano" and "Chicana" are used in reference to U.S. citizens of Mexican descent. However, those terms have a wide range of meanings in various parts of the world. The term began to be widely used during the Chicano Movement, mainly among Mexican Americans, especially in the movement's...
culture.
In 1952, her mother remarried Clarence Ferrari. After, the three of them moved to Pacoima, Los Angeles. This neighborhood was drastically different then Watts, as the Mexican-Americans were minorities and Ferrari, of Italian descent, did not want Spanish to be spoken in the house.
Education
As well as at home, she was not allowed to speak Spanish in school, and she did not know English very well. It did take some time, and she started to become better in classes once she was able to understand the textbooks. With the encouragement of her art teacher, she began drawing and painting. She would graduate from Bishop Alemany High SchoolBishop Alemany High School
Bishop Alemany High School is a Roman Catholic secondary school located in the Mission Hills neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, located in the San Fernando Valley. It is located within the San Fernando Pastoral Region of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles...
in 1964.
She then attended California State University, Northridge
California State University, Northridge
California State University, Northridge is a public university in Northridge, a neighborhood in the San Fernando Valley area of Los Angeles, California, United States....
(CSUN) and earned her Bachelor's degree in 1969 and Master's degree in art in 1979. While there, she learned and studied modern abstract art
Abstract art
Abstract art uses a visual language of form, color and line to create a composition which may exist with a degree of independence from visual references in the world. Western art had been, from the Renaissance up to the middle of the 19th century, underpinned by the logic of perspective and an...
. She wanted to make art for her family and the people in Watts, but she knew they didn't go to galleries. "I thought to myself, if I get my work into galleries, who will go there? People in my family hadn't ever been in a gallery in their entire lives. My neighbors never went to galleries...And it didn't make sense to me at the time to put art behind some guarded wall."
Teacher and other jobs
When she graduated from CSUN, she got a job teaching at her former high school. Her students were not very friendly with each other, and she thought she had an idea as to teach them how to cooperate with each other. She had a group of her students make a mural on one side of the school's wall. Everybody wanted to work on it, and it forced them to work things out without fighting. Baca was present at the 1970 Chicano MoratoriumChicano Moratorium
The Chicano Moratorium, formally known as the National Chicano Moratorium Committee, was a movement of Chicano anti-war activists that built a broad-based coalition of Mexican-American groups to organize opposition to the Vietnam War...
, an anti-war
Anti-war
An anti-war movement is a social movement, usually in opposition to a particular nation's decision to start or carry on an armed conflict, unconditional of a maybe-existing just cause. The term can also refer to pacifism, which is the opposition to all use of military force during conflicts. Many...
action of the Chicano Movement
Chicano Movement
The Chicano Movement of the 1960s, also called the Chicano Civil Rights Movement, also known as El Movimiento, is an extension of the Mexican American Civil Rights Movement which began in the 1940s with the stated goal of achieving Mexican American empowerment.-Origins:The Chicano Movement...
. The principal of the school believed teachers should not take part in the protest marches, and she was fired with several other teachers.
After being fired, she thought she could never get another job because of her involvement in the protests. She would find her next job at the Los Angeles Parks and Recreation Department. Her new job consisted of her teaching art for a summer program in the city's public park. In Boyle Heights, Los Angeles, at this time, had the most Mexican-Americans and had the highest number of gangs in the country. Members of different gangs loitered in the parks she worked at, and she noticed the graffiti and she knew it was territorial markings. "You could read a wall and learn everything you needed to know about that community." One of her favorites was, "I'd rather spend one day as a lion than a hundred as a lamb."
Las Vistas Nuevas
In the summer of 1970, Baca wanted to find a way to have art bridge the neighborhood. She decided to create a mural in Boyle Heights as a way for people to positively feel the neighborhood was theirs. In the first team, she had twenty members from four different gangs, and the group decided on the name Las Vistas Nuevas ("New Views"). The mural they would create would show images that would be familiar to the Mexican-Americans who were living in the neighborhood. "I want to use public space to create a public voice for, and a public consciousness about people who are, in fact, the majority of the population but who are not represented in any visual way.Mi Abuelita
Their first project was on three walls of an outdoor stage in Hollenbeck ParkHollenbeck Park
Hollenbeck Park is located on the corner of Saint Louis and Fourth Streets in Boyle Heights, Los Angeles, California. Some of the Park's features include a lake, picinic areas and even a skateboard park....
. Mi Abuelita ("My Grandmother"), the mural depicted a Mexican-American grandmother with her arms outstretched as if to give a hug. "This work recognized the primary position of the matriarch in Mexican families. It also marked the first step in the development of a unique collective process that employs art to mediate between rival gang members competing for public space and public identity."
This project was difficult because she had to get the different members to cooperate with each other. Every day, problems arose with gang members who were not on the mural team and they didn't like what Baca was doing. They would attempt to interfere with the project, by threatening team members and vandalizing the work site. Local police did not like the idea of rival gang members together, fearing it would spark gang violence. She also began to work on the mural without permission from the city or the manager of Hollenbeck Park, which arouse questions from her supervisor and other city officials.
Despite all of the trouble, Baca wanted to finish the project. She had lookouts who would signal the mural team if rival gang members were headed toward the work site or if the police were coming. One day, a city official came to the park because he had been getting complaints about the project. After seeing the progress being done and the team members working so well with each other, he gave Baca permission from the city to complete the mural. "The city was amazed at the work I was doing, making murals with kids who scared directors out of neighborhood centers."
After its completion, the community loved it. Baca said, "Everybody related to it. People brought candles to that site. For 12 years people put flowers at the base of the grandmother image." Las Vistas Nuevas would complete a total of three murals that summer.
After the murals, she was offered a job in 1970 as the director of a new citywide mural program. She was in charge of creating the program from ground up, including choosing where murals go, designing the murals, and supervising the mural painting teams. They would consist of teenagers who were in trouble with the police. Members of the original Las Vistas Nuevas were hired to help run the multi-site program. This group would go on to paint more than 500 murals.
With this new job, she encountered her first problems with censorship
Censorship
thumb|[[Book burning]] following the [[1973 Chilean coup d'état|1973 coup]] that installed the [[Military government of Chile |Pinochet regime]] in Chile...
. People in the neighborhoods of the murals wanted to show all parts of life of the neighborhood, the good and bad. The city, however, did not want any controversy shown on the murals. One example was when the city objected to a mural that showed people struggling with police, and they threatened to stop funding the program if Baca did not remove it. Baca said, "I really liked the idea that the work could not be owned by anyone. So, therefore it wasn't going to be interesting to the rich or to the wealthy, and it didn't have to meet the caveats of art that museums would be interested in. Rather than give in , she formed the Social and Public Art Resource Center
Social and Public Art Resource Center
The Social and Public Art Resource Center is a non-profit community arts center based in Venice, California. SPARC hosts exhibitions, sponsors workshops and murals, and lobbies for the preservation of Los Angeles-area murals and other works of public art...
(SPARC) in 1976 to continue funding the creation of murals in public.
Great Wall of Los Angeles
Their first project was the Great Wall of Los AngelesGreat Wall of Los Angeles
The Great Wall of Los Angeles is a mural designed by Judith Baca and executed by community youth and artists coordinated by the Social and Public Art Resource Center...
. She was hired by the United States Army Corps of Engineers
United States Army Corps of Engineers
The United States Army Corps of Engineers is a federal agency and a major Army command made up of some 38,000 civilian and military personnel, making it the world's largest public engineering, design and construction management agency...
to help improve the area around a San Fernando Valley
San Fernando Valley
The San Fernando Valley is an urbanized valley located in the Los Angeles metropolitan area of southern California, United States, defined by the dramatic mountains of the Transverse Ranges circling it...
flood control channel called the Tujunga Wash
Tujunga Wash
Tujunga Wash is a stream in Los Angeles County, California. It is a tributary of the Los Angeles River, providing about a fifth of its flow, and drains about...
. It's essentially a ditch that contained a large concrete retaining wall. Her idea for a mural was to paint a history of the city of Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
, but not the version found in history books. The events that were overlooked were the ones that interested her. "It was an excellent place to bring youth of varied ethnic backgrounds from all over the city to work on an alternate view of the history of the U.S. which included people of color who had been left out of American history books." Baca also said the defining metaphor of the mural would be "It is a tattoo on the scar where the river once ran."
Baca was inspired by Los tres Grandes ("The Three Greats"), an novel about the three of the most influential Mexican muralists: Diego Rivera
Diego Rivera
Diego María de la Concepción Juan Nepomuceno Estanislao de la Rivera y Barrientos Acosta y Rodríguez was a prominent Mexican painter born in Guanajuato, Guanajuato, an active communist, and husband of Frida Kahlo . His large wall works in fresco helped establish the Mexican Mural Movement in...
, David Alfaro Siqueiros
David Alfaro Siqueiros
José David Alfaro Siqueiros was a social realist painter, known for his large murals in fresco that helped establish the Mexican Mural Renaissance, together with works by Diego Rivera and José Clemente Orozco, and also a member of the Mexican Communist Party who participated in an...
, and José Clemente Orozco
José Clemente Orozco
José Clemente Orozco was a Mexican social realist painter, who specialized in bold murals that established the Mexican Mural Renaissance together with murals by Diego Rivera, David Alfaro Siqueiros, and others...
. In 1977, she attended a workshop at the Taller Siqueiros in Cuernavaca
Cuernavaca
Cuernavaca is the capital and largest city of the state of Morelos in Mexico. It was established at the archeological site of Gualupita I by the Olmec, "the mother culture" of Mesoamerica, approximately 3200 years ago...
, Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
, to learn muralism techniques and see their murals in person. Even though all three were deceased at the time, she was able to work with some of Siqueiros' former students. She also interviewed people about their lives, family histories, ancestry, and stories they remember hearing from their older relatives, as well as consulting history experts. From this, she was able to create the design for the mural. Some of the things portrayed in the mural was the first time they were blazoned in public, including but not limited to the Dust Bowl
Dust Bowl
The Dust Bowl, or the Dirty Thirties, was a period of severe dust storms causing major ecological and agricultural damage to American and Canadian prairie lands from 1930 to 1936...
Journey, Japanese American internment
Japanese American internment
Japanese-American internment was the relocation and internment by the United States government in 1942 of approximately 110,000 Japanese Americans and Japanese who lived along the Pacific coast of the United States to camps called "War Relocation Camps," in the wake of Imperial Japan's attack on...
during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, Zoot Suit Riots
Zoot Suit Riots
The Zoot Suit Riots were a series of riots in 1943 during World War II that erupted in Los Angeles, California between white sailors and Marines stationed throughout thehi c mlc city and Latino youths, who were recognizable by the zoot suits they favored...
, and the Freedom Bus Rides.
Baca wanted the project to be done by people as diverse as the ones that were to be painted. She had people from all different ages and backgrounds participate. Some were scholars and artists, but the majority were just community members. "Making a mural is like a big movie production, it can involve 20 sets of scaffolding, four trucks, and food for 50 people." 400 people came out and help paint the mural, which took seven summers to complete, and was finished in 1984.
Teaching career
Baca began a professorship at University of California, IrvineUniversity of California, Irvine
The University of California, Irvine , founded in 1965, is one of the ten campuses of the University of California, located in Irvine, California, USA...
in 1980, and left in 1994. The next year, she implemented the Muralist Training Workshop to teach people the techniques she had picked up. She also was a professor at California State University, Monterey Bay
California State University, Monterey Bay
California State University, Monterey Bay is a small public university in the California State University system on the site of the former U.S. Army base Fort Ord, on the Central Coast of California. It is accredited by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges.CSUMB was founded in 1994 with...
from 1994 to 1996, where she co-founded the Visual & Public Arts Institute Department.
In 1996, she moved to University of California, Los Angeles
University of California, Los Angeles
The University of California, Los Angeles is a public research university located in the Westwood neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, USA. It was founded in 1919 as the "Southern Branch" of the University of California and is the second oldest of the ten campuses...
(UCLA) and took on multiple roles. In 1993, she co-founded UCLA's Cesar Chavez Center for Interdisciplinary Studies, an institution for which she serves as vice chair.
In 1998, she served as a master artist in residence with the Role of the Arts in Civic Dialogue at Harvard University
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
The World Wall and other projects
In 1987, she began painting The World Wall: A Vision of the Future Without Fear, a painting that showed the world with no-violence. She believed the first step to world peace was imagining it, and she wanted artist from all over the world to help her paint it. She wanted it to be painted in panels so it could moved around to different places. After years of planning and contributions from artists from other countries, it had its debut in FinlandFinland
Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...
in 1990. The idea was when the panels traveled the world, the host country would add their own panel to the collection. Some of the countries include Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
, Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
/Palestine
Palestine
Palestine is a conventional name, among others, used to describe the geographic region between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, and various adjoining lands....
, Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
, and Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
.
In 1988, Mayor of Los Angeles Tom Bradley
Tom Bradley (politician)
Thomas J. "Tom" Bradley was the 38th Mayor of Los Angeles, California, serving in that office from 1973 to 1993. He was the first and to date only African American mayor of Los Angeles...
commissioned her to create the Neighborhood Pride Program, a citywide project to paint murals. The project employed over 1,800 at-risk youth and is responsible for over 105 murals throughout the city.
In 1996, she created La Memoria de Nuestra Tierra ("Our Land Has Memory") for the Denver International Airport
Denver International Airport
Denver International Airport , often referred to as DIA, is an airport in Denver, Colorado. By land size, at , it is the largest international airport in the United States, and the third largest international airport in the world after King Fahd International Airport and Montréal-Mirabel...
. This one was personal for Baca, as her grandparents fled Mexico during the Mexican Revolution
Mexican Revolution
The Mexican Revolution was a major armed struggle that started in 1910, with an uprising led by Francisco I. Madero against longtime autocrat Porfirio Díaz. The Revolution was characterized by several socialist, liberal, anarchist, populist, and agrarianist movements. Over time the Revolution...
and came to La Junta, Colorado
La Junta, Colorado
The City of La Junta is a Home Rule Municipality that is the county seat and the most populous city of Otero County, Colorado, United States. The city population was 7,568 at the U.S. Census 2000. La Junta is located on the Arkansas River in southeastern Colorado east of Pueblo.-History:During...
, Colorado
Colorado
Colorado is a U.S. state that encompasses much of the Rocky Mountains as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of the Great Plains...
. The mural "not only to tell the forgotten stories of people who, like birds or water, traveled back and forth across the land freely, before there was a line that distinguished which side you were from, but to speak to our shared human condition as temporary residents of the earth...The making of this work was an excavation of a remembering of their histories." It was completed in 2000.
She conducted research by interviewing residents and lead a workshop with University of Southern Colorado students. She found a picture in a garage in Pueblo
Pueblo
Pueblo is a term used to describe modern communities of Native Americans in the Southwestern United States of America. The first Spanish explorers of the Southwest used this term to describe the communities housed in apartment-like structures built of stone, adobe mud, and other local material...
by Juan Espinosa, photographer and founder El Diario de la Gente, Boulder, Colorado, of an important meeting between Corky Gonzales
Rodolfo Gonzales
Rodolfo "Corky" Gonzáles was a Mexican American boxer, poet, and political activist. He convened the first-ever Chicano youth conference in March 1969, which was attended by many future Chicano activists and artists. The conference also promulgated the Plan Espiritual de Aztlán, a manifesto...
of the Colorado Crusade for Justice and Cesar Chavez
César Chávez
César Estrada Chávez was an American farm worker, labor leader, and civil rights activist who, with Dolores Huerta, co-founded the National Farm Workers Association, which later became the United Farm Workers ....
of the United Farm Workers
United Farm Workers
The United Farm Workers of America is a labor union created from the merging of two groups, the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee led by Filipino organizer Larry Itliong, and the National Farm Workers Association led by César Chávez...
, and their agreement to bring the Delano grape strike
Delano grape strike
The strike began when the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee, mostly Filipino farm workers in Delano, California, led by Philip Vera Cruz, Larry Itliong, Benjamin Gines and Pete Velasco, walked off the farms of area table-grape growers, demanding wages equal to the federal minimum wage...
to Colorado.
In June 2008, Judy spoke at the "Against the Wall: The ruin and renewal of LA's murals" panel held at Morono Kiang Gallery across the street from the famous "Pope of Broadway" mural. In that same year, she made the Cesar Chavez Monument Arch of Dignity, Equality, and Justice. It is located at San Jose State University
San José State University
San Jose State University is a public university located in San Jose, California, United States...
. It has a portrait of Cesar Chavez
César Chávez
César Estrada Chávez was an American farm worker, labor leader, and civil rights activist who, with Dolores Huerta, co-founded the National Farm Workers Association, which later became the United Farm Workers ....
, Mahatma Gandhi
Mahatma Gandhi
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi , pronounced . 2 October 1869 – 30 January 1948) was the pre-eminent political and ideological leader of India during the Indian independence movement...
, and Dolores Huerta
Dolores Huerta
Dolores C. Huerta is the co-founder and First Vice President Emeritus of the United Farm Workers of America, AFL-CIO , and a member of the Democratic Socialists of America.-Early life:...
.
Mi Abuelita (1970)
20 ft x 35 ft. Acyrlic on cement. Painted in the band shell of Hollenbeck ParkHollenbeck Park
Hollenbeck Park is located on the corner of Saint Louis and Fourth Streets in Boyle Heights, Los Angeles, California. Some of the Park's features include a lake, picinic areas and even a skateboard park....
, sponsored by the Los Angeles Parks and Recreation Department (her employer at the time). The mural depicts an Abuelita ("Grandmother") with outstretched arms, like she is ready for a hug.
“History of Unitarianism” (1981)
20 ft x 30 ft. Acrylic on cement. Painted on a vaulted ceiling entrance located at the First Unitarian Church of Los AngelesFirst Unitarian Church, Los Angeles
First Unitarian Church of Los Angeles is an independent congregation affiliated with the Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations. Since its founding in 1877 the church has been a leader in social justice activism for the Unitarian Universalist faith, and for the city of Los Angeles...
. Sponsored by the First Unitarian Church. The mural features portrait likenesses of woman's rights activist and founder of the church, Caroline Severance, Unitarian Martyr Miguel Servetus, and others.
The Great Wall of Los Angeles (1984)
13 ft x 2400 ft. The Great Wall of Los AngelesGreat Wall of Los Angeles
The Great Wall of Los Angeles is a mural designed by Judith Baca and executed by community youth and artists coordinated by the Social and Public Art Resource Center...
is thought to be the largest mural in the world. The mural depicts California's history, with some controversial subjects painted for the first time in public.
The World Wall: A Vision of the Future without Fear (1990)(ongoing)
The World Wall has been exhibited in Finland, Russia, Mexico, and throughout the United States of America. It consists of eight panels done by Judy Baca and various international artists.Danza Indigenas (1994)
I wanted to put memory into a piece of the land once owned by the American Indian cultures—memory and willpower are what any culture, the ones living then and those living now, has to have to preserve itself.
Baca's work "Danzas Indigenas" at the Metrolink station in Baldwin Park, California
Baldwin Park, California
Baldwin Park is a city located in the central San Gabriel Valley region of Los Angeles County, California, United States. As of the 2010 census, the population was 75,390, down from 75,837 at the 2000 census.- History :...
contains a quote from the Chicana writer Gloria Anzaldua reads: "This land was Mexican once, was Indian always and is, and will be again," and "It was better before they came." About the first quote, Joseph Turner of Save Our State
Save Our State
Save Our State is an activist organization opposed to illegal immigration in Southern California. The group also has a chapter in Northern California...
stated, "It's seditious. It essentially talks about returning this land to Mexico." About the second quote SOS claims the referent of "they" is "white people"
On May 14, 2005, approximately 25 members of Save Our State demonstrated, with 300 counter-demonstrators.
Local 11 (1998)
31 ft x 29 ft digital mural on vinyl.By monumentalizing the hidden, or often forgotten, workforce of Los Angeles, Baca successfully creates a mural that forces the public to recognize the unrecognizable.
La Memoria de Nuestra Tierra: Colorado (2000)
10 ft x 55 ft digitally generated and hand painted mural on aluminum substrate. Located in Denver International Airport's central terminal. Sponsored by Denver International Airport Public Art Program.Durango Mural Project: Recollections (2002)
20 ft x 30 ft Digitally Produced Mural.Baca worked with Southern Ute and Chicano Youth of Durango Colorado to create this mural. It was produced in SPARC's Digital Mural Lab.
Digital Tile Murals on the Venice Boardwalk (2003)
Designed and created memorial podiums on the history of the region's murals. Furthermore, Baca designed fence treatments along the Venice Boardwalk, which incorporated the 15 tile murals. It was commissioned by the city of Los Angeles and the Venice Beach Ocean Front Walk Renovation Project.Migration of the Golden People (2002)
14ft x 32ft digital mural at the Central American Research and Education Center of Los Angeles in Pico Union.Developed with youth participants and Central American scholars on the migration of the 1980’s of Central Americans to Los Angeles.
Sponsored by City of Los Angeles and SPARC.
Cesar Chavez Monument Plaza (2008)
25 ft arch, called the Cesar Chavez Monument Arch of Dignity, Equality, and Justice. Located on the San Jose State UniversitySan José State University
San Jose State University is a public university located in San Jose, California, United States...
campus and has murals of farm workers, Cesar Chavez
César Chávez
César Estrada Chávez was an American farm worker, labor leader, and civil rights activist who, with Dolores Huerta, co-founded the National Farm Workers Association, which later became the United Farm Workers ....
, Mahatma Gandhi
Mahatma Gandhi
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi , pronounced . 2 October 1869 – 30 January 1948) was the pre-eminent political and ideological leader of India during the Indian independence movement...
, and Delores Huerta.
Awards
- 1988 - National Association of Art Educator's award for Educator of the Year
- 1991 - UCLA Chicano Studies Research CenterUCLA Chicano Studies Research CenterThe UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center was founded in 1969 with a commitment to foster multidisciplinary research efforts at the University of California, Los Angeles . It is one of four ethnic studies centers established at UCLA that year, all of which were the first in the nation and have...
award for Rockefeller FellowshipRockefeller FoundationThe Rockefeller Foundation is a prominent philanthropic organization and private foundation based at 420 Fifth Avenue, New York City. The preeminent institution established by the six-generation Rockefeller family, it was founded by John D. Rockefeller , along with his son John D. Rockefeller, Jr... - 1997 - National Hispanic Magazine's Lifetime Achievement Award
- 1998 - Women's Caucus for Art's Influential Woman Artist Award
- 1998 - Harvard UniversityHarvard UniversityHarvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
's Master Artist and Senior Scholar - 2001 - Liberty Hill FoundationLiberty Hill FoundationThe Liberty Hill Foundation is a non-profit organization founded by Sarah Pillsbury, heir to the Minnesota Pillsbury baking fortune, in 1976. Its motto is "Change. Not Charity." They have funded local Los Angeles organizations dedicated to environmental justice, such as East Yard Communities for...
's Creative Vision Award - 2001 - National Hispanic Heritage FoundationHispanic Heritage FoundationThe Hispanic Heritage Foundation is a non-profit organization operating out of Reston, Virginia that works to increase the number of Latina and Latino leaders in society...
's Hispanic Heritage Award for Educator of the Year - 2002 - Dartmouth CollegeDartmouth CollegeDartmouth College is a private, Ivy League university in Hanover, New Hampshire, United States. The institution comprises a liberal arts college, Dartmouth Medical School, Thayer School of Engineering, and the Tuck School of Business, as well as 19 graduate programs in the arts and sciences...
's Montgomery Fellowship - 2003 - Guggenheim FellowshipGuggenheim FellowshipGuggenheim Fellowships are American grants that have been awarded annually since 1925 by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the arts." Each year, the foundation makes...
- 2005 - Hispanic Business MagazineHispanic BusinessHispanic Business, Inc. is a media company based in Goleta, California, in the United States of America. The firm was founded by Jesús Chavarría in 1979 and its publications are oriented towards Hispanic professionals and entrepreneurs.-Publications:...
's 100 Most Influential People - 2009 - Escuela Tlatelolco Cenro des Estudios's Champion of Change Award
- 2009 - InnerCity Struggle's Elizabeth "Betita" Martínez Activist Scholar Award
Personal life
Baca's mother remarried after her father, and Baca has a half-brother Gary (1952-) and half-sister Diane (1957-). She was 19 years old when she got married in college, but it ended six years later. She lives in Venice, California.Baca's grandfather, Teodoro Baca, escaped troops that wanted to enlist him in Pancho Villa
Pancho Villa
José Doroteo Arango Arámbula – better known by his pseudonym Francisco Villa or its hypocorism Pancho Villa – was one of the most prominent Mexican Revolutionary generals....
's army. He owned a store and land in Parral, Chihuahua
Parral, Chihuahua
Hidalgo del Parral, is a city and seat of the municipality of Hidalgo del Parral in the Mexican state of Chihuahua. It is located in the southern part of the state, 220 km from the state capital, the city of Chihuahua, Chih....
. A simultaneous robbery of Baca's grandmother at the store and Teodoro on a train convinced the couple that they should go North. Seferino Baca and Teodoro settled at the base of the Purgatoire River
Purgatoire River
The Purgatoire River is a river in southeastern Colorado, United States. The river is also known locally as the Purgatory River or the Picketwire River...
.
Sources
- Feland: Modern Curriculum Press, 1994. ISBN 0-8136-5276-6.
- Hammond, Harmony. Lesbian art in America: a contemporary history. New York: Rizzoli, 2000. ISBN 0-8478-2248-6.
- Olmstead, Mary. Judy Baca. Chicago: Raintree, 2005. ISBN 1-4109-0915-8.
- Telgen, Diane, and Jim Kamp, editors. Latinas! : women of achievement. Detroit: Visible Ink Press, 1996. ISBN 0-7876-0883-1.
- Las Mujeres: Mexican American/Chicana women: photographs and biographies of seventeen women from the Spanish colonial period to the present. WindsorWindsor, CaliforniaWindsor is an incorporated town in Sonoma County, California, United States. The population was 26,801 as of the 2010 census.-Geography:Windsor is located on U.S. Route 101 in the Russian River valley, about southeast of Healdsburg, California....
: National Women’s History Project, 1995. ISBN 0-938625-34-9.
External links
- Official site
- Judy Baca biography from UCLA Chavez Institute
- Judith Baca's Olympic Champions, 1948-1964, Breaking Barriers from the Hispanic Research Center at Arizona State UniversityArizona State UniversityArizona State University is a public research university located in the Phoenix Metropolitan Area of the State of Arizona...
- " Jews and Arabs, Painting a Mural Together, Find a Mosaic of Distrust" New York Times, April 28, 1998
- Judy F. Baca - Muralist, Activist & Educator KCET Departures Venice Interviews of the artist
- Oral history interviews with Judith Baca, 1986 Aug. 5-6 from the Smithsonian Archives of American ArtArchives of American ArtThe Archives of American Art is the largest collection of primary resources documenting the history of the visual arts in the United States. More than 16 million items of original material are housed in the Archives' research centers in Washington, D.C...