Artist Judith Baca, Volunteers to Give the Great Wall of Los Angeles Mural a ‘Bubble Bath’
WHAT: Great Wall of Los Angeles Mural ‘Bubble Bath’ cleaning
WHEN: THIS FRIDAY, AUGUST 1
• LA City Councilmember Paul Krekorian will be there from 4 to 4:30 p.m.
• The cleaning will last from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. WHERE: Coldwater Canyon between Burbank Blvd and Oxnard St, Valley Glen (5798 Coldwater Canyon Ave 91607)
WHO: Councilmember Paul Krekorian; Social and Public Art Resource Center (SPARC) Co-Founder, UCLA Professor and mural artist Judith F. Baca; Filmmaker Donna Deitch; and mural conservators and community volunteers. The event is organized by SPARC.
“The Great Wall of Los Angeles is a cultural treasure for the San Fernando Valley and all of Los Angeles,” said City Councilmember Paul Krekorian. “As the longest mural in the world, it is also one of the most important, showcasing the incredible diversity that shaped our city and continues to make it great. I’m happy to partner with SPARC to clean and maintain the mural so that everyone can enjoy the rich, rewarding visual experience it provides.”
WHY: The Great Wall of Los Angeles is America’s largest monument to interracial harmony and the signature work of the SPARC. Mural conservators and volunteers will be on-site to support the effort to wash over 2,500 feet of mural in one day. Layers of dirt, spider webs and fertilizer contaminates will be removed.
The mural is the vision and completed under the direction of SPARC Co-Founder and Distinguished UCLA Professor, Judith F. Baca. Initiated in 1976, the mural was created over five summers and employed over 400 youth and their families from diverse, social and economic backgrounds working with artists, oral historians, ethnologists, scholars, and hundreds of community members. The Great Wall of LA chronicles the contributions made by ethnic and diverse people to the history of America from pre-historic time to the 1950s. Read the full history of the Great Wall of Los Angeles>>
The Great Wall of Los Angeles site has been a cultural destination site for over 35 years. The San Fernando Valley is proud to have this iconic cultural landmark in its backyard and local government officials, agencies and the community continue to support SPARC’s efforts to promote it, maintain it, and expand it. By next year an Interpretive “Green” Bridge will be built, made out of rammed earth and recycled debris of the LA River, ultimately “cementing” a relationship between the conservation and ethnic history of LA. Future plans to include additional decades are in the works, as well as providing basic amenities at the site, benches, picnic tables, restrooms and educational kiosks. As the mother of all murals in Los Angeles, the Great Wall of Los Angeles is a testament to the power of murals, both in scale and in message.
About SPARC: SPARC is a LA-based non-profit arts organization committed to Art, Community, Education and Social Justice. Founded in 1976 by UCLA Professor and muralist Judith F. Baca, filmmaker Donna Deitch, and artist Christina Schlesinger, SPARC is a cultural center that creates public art as a vehicle to promote civic dialogue, foster cross-cultural understanding and address critical social issues. We accomplish our mission by producing, preserving and teaching methods to create community-based, public art.
For more information about the Great Wall of Los Angeles: http://www.SPARCinLA.org or call 310.822-9560 x10.
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Author: Lisa Bianconi
Editor of www.nohoartsdistrict.com