Artist Creates Murals to Help Connect Communities
Judy Baca, professor in the Departments of World Arts and Cultures/Dance as well as Chicano/a Studies at UCLA has served as the Founder/Artistic Director of the Social and Public Art Resource Center (SPARC) in Venice, California since 1976. As a visual artist and one of the nation's leading muralists, Baca is best known for her large-scale public art works. Now, Baca's work is also featured in the Hammer Museum exhibition Radical Women: Latin American Art, 1960-1985.
"You may not know her name, but chances are you've seen her work. Artist Judy Baca's murals blanket Southern California. Each one is designed to not only please the eye, but also stimulate the mind while connecting communities.
Baca has been transforming places and people since the 1970s. That's when she founded LA city's first mural program, which is now called SPARC: Social and Public Art Resources Center.
Born in Watts and raised in Pacoima, Baca decided at an early age she wanted her art to create social change.
"I think inherent in the work I do is that its intentionality is to change people's minds, to begin to make people think differently about themselves and the environment they live in," she said.
That's what she did with "The Great Wall of Los Angeles." It is the longest mural in the world, spanning a half mile, along a portion of the LA River that was turned into a concrete flood control channel in the San Fernando Valley.
"I remember standing on the banks of that river and thinking this is a scar that needs to be healed, just the way the stories of the people needed to be resurrected," Baca said.
The mural tells the multicultural history of California from prehistoric times to the 1950s. It's a history often untold, which is why Baca wanted the mural created by people whose voices are often unheard."— Kim Baldonado, Oct. 1, 2017
Read the full article at the NBC Los Angeles website.