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Showing posts with label Chicano murals. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Chicano murals. Show all posts

Sunday, May 26, 2019

Chicano Murals in Salinas, California by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Chicano Murals in Salinas, California by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

“Why didn’t the Weekly ask you to write about the murals in Salinas?” asked my friend as we drove through the lettuce fields from the resort town of Monterey to the capital of America’s lettuce industry – Salinas, California.

“I was miffed about not getting that article, but I think they were leery about sending a woman to barrio even if she speaks Spanish,” I answered, smiling about the staff of the Monterey County Weekly.

I liked the article that C. Kevin Smith had written, though, and printed out the mural mile map that went with the article and planned an outing for my daughter Florence and one of my friends who did collaging journals.

“You can get some colorful photos for your journal,” I said to get a navigator in Salinas in pre-GPS days.

So, we drove to downtown Salinas and headed towards East Salinas.

There were thirteen places listed on the mural mile map.  I was able to park the car, so we could get out and take photos at eleven of the mural stops.  One of the murals was under a highway overpass and hard to get to.  We followed the map with the need for a few U-turns and windings through the neighborhood.

Murals were credited to Arturo Bolaños, Jayne Cerna, Phillip Tabera, Yermo Aranda, Jesus Leon, and José Ortiz.
José Ortiz explained how Chicano murals, an urban art form pioneered in Los Angeles and San Francisco, are composed as public art in a video from the Museum of Monterey called The 100 Story Project – José Ortiz: The Muralist Tradition (available on youtube).

Ortiz, for example, meets with the community to discuss commissions for input on subject matter and composition.  Ortiz teases out what is called the invisible history, which often differs from what is in the history books.  The saying that the victors write the history books is often true.

Once the community input has been done, Ortiz draws the mural due to his expertise acquired from years of practice, but his colleagues and community members help with the painting.  Chicano murals made this way beautify bleak urban landscapes and honor and uplift neighborhood residents.

The invisible history of Salinas came through in many images of round Aztec calendars, images of the Virgin of Guadalupe in her blue mantle, the eagle which appears on the Mexican flag, barbed wire, fields of food, pre-Columbian pyramids, and US flags.  Ortiz explained that the barbed wire represents the border in the 100 Stories video. 

All these images connect Hispanics to their Mexican past while rooting them in the United States.  Mexico offered many people few opportunities and like my own ancestors in Virginia, the people coming here knew they had or have to succeed, because there was no going back.

The murals by José Ortiz were Florence’s favorites and mine as well.  The all looked to the future with their child-oriented themes.  The mural entitled Los Niños del Sol (Children of the Sun) at the Women, Infant, and Children (WIC) office has images of children with rays of sunshine reflecting back to the sky that get wider as they reach heavenward.

Another mural by Ortiz at the Natividad Elementary School is entitled Los Niños Cosmos (Cosmic Children).  This mural made me think of Aztec priest-astronomers.  I thought it was an encouragement to do well in school.

Chicano muralism is a unique American art form, but does draw upon Mexican muralism and pre-Columbian muralism for inspiration.  Like the art of ancient Greece, the architecture of the Mayan and Aztec Empires was painted.  Pre-Columbian muralism was art made to perpetuate and preserve a ruling elite.

Muralism in Mexico differed from the pre-Columbian use of the art form in that it was not used to perpetuate an existing social order.  Instead, Mexican muralism was used to create a new nation after the Mexican Revolution.

Mexican muralism was begun in the 1920s and lasted till the 1970s.  Three artists in particular were associated with Mexican muralism – Diego Rivera (1886 – 1957), José Clemente Orozco (1883 – 1949), and David Alfaro Siquieros (1896 – 1974).  These artists largely decorated public buildings of the new Mexican government with the intention of teaching a largely illiterate public how to become a democratic nation after centuries of oppression.

What unites the muralist tradition of the Chicano movement, the Mexican muralists, and pre-Columbian muralism is the use of line to define image outlines instead of blending them together as you would do in pastel work.  Exuberant colors link these traditions as well.  Muralism as a form of expression has persisted for centuries among populations of Mexican and Mesoamerican descent.

Drawing is extremely important in the perpetuation of this art form as much of it originated in sculpture on architecture.  José Ortiz began a school shortly after the Weekly wrote about the murals in East Salinas.  The school is devoted to the arts, especially drawing.

When I became youth services librarian of Monterey County, I asked Ortiz to do cartooning workshops around the county in addition to loading the library system with books devoted to drawing cartoons and manga to help perpetuate this tradition as well.

I took Florence to several of his workshops, saying, “You can use drawing to do story boards for film, video games, and animated films for movies, documentaries, or even teaching people how to do things.”

Ortiz is a master teacher, who knows how to pass on artistic traditions at his Hijos del Sol studio for youth in Salinas.  I think he is a Monterey County treasure.

By Ruth Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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