Looking at the Masters: Judy Baca

Preeminent Chicana artist of today, Judy Baca began her mural career by gathering a team of twenty gang members from four rival gangs. The unexpected collaboration was a major success. The group chose the name Las Vistas Nuevas (New Views). Their first project was the large mural “Mi Abuelita” (1970) (25’x35’) on the stage of Hollenbeck Park in Boyle Heights. Bringing together one of the most racially diverse Latino and Black communities in Los Angeles was Baca’s primary goal.  Her other goal was “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.” 

Her next project was “The Great Wall of Los Angeles” (1979-1984) (2754 feet long) (13.5 feet high). The United States Army Corp of Engineers hired Baca to do something with the site of the flood control channel in the San Fernando Valley known as the Tujunga Wash. Baca called the concrete channel “a tattoo on the scar where the river once ran.” Originally called “The History of California,” the images depict the history of Los Angeles, beginning with “Pre-historic California 20,000 B.C. and The La Brea Tar Pits,” the first panel at the southern end of the wall. Baca and experts on history of the area completed the research for the panels, and they conducted interviews with families in the area to gather information about recent times, including their own histories. Skeletons of the saber-toothed tiger, mammoth, and short-faced bear were found in the Tar Pits, as well as specimens of various plant food sources. 

Baca was able to pay her crew with private grants and funding from the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act of 1973 (CETA).  Its purpose was to provide on-the-job training, classroom instruction, and public service employment. Her initial crew consisted of nine other artists, five historians, and 80 young men, aged 14-21, from the criminal justice system. According to Baca parents would allow only their boys to work. A feminist, she actively worked to recruit women for the project.

“The Great Wall of Los Angeles” (1979-1984) ends with the “Olympic Champions Breaking Barriers 1964-1984.” It included the image of Wilma Rudolph, who was recognized at the 1960 Olympics in Rome as the fastest woman in the world. The wall was divided into10 segments.  Among the many historical events depicted on the half-mile long wall were the 1848 Gold Rush, Chinese immigrants building the trans-continental railroad, Japanese Americans held in internment camps, the Jazz Age, Zoot Suits Riots, Rock and Roll, and the Freedom Bus Rides. Four hundred muralists worked on the wall over a five-year period.  

“What I learned from the young people who participated is that it changed forever the way that they saw each other. We were in segregated communities…but they were all sorts of ‘rejects’, thought to be young people who will never succeed. But that mixing with each other, which has continued for a lifetime, was a remarkable change.”

In 2023, Baca received a Guggenheim Fellowship, a United States Artists Rockefeller Fellowship, and a Mellon Foundation Grant to extend the Great Wall another 60 feet with panels depicting the Chicano Movement, the Farmworkers Movement, the Watts Rebellion, Freedom Riders, the Civil Rights Movement, and other significant historical events. The Los Angeles County Museum of Art transformed a section of one of its galleries into an active art studio, permitting visitors to watch Baca and her coworkers create the new panels. 

“Seeing Through Others’ Eyes” (2010) and “Tiny Ripples of Hope” (2010) were sponsored by the Kennedy Commission and the Los Angeles Unified School District. The two murals are located in the Paul Schrade Library at the RFK Community School for K-12 Education. Robert Kennedy was assassinated in June1968 after giving a speech in the Embassy Ballroom of the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. The Hotel was demolished in 2006.  The construction of RFK Community School K-12, to honor Kennedy, was built between 2006 and 2010. Baca’s murals are located in the Shrade Library of the RFK school, where the Embassy Ballroom stood.  The two arched murals (each 12’ 8’’ x 55’) are digital murals. Created by drawing and painting, the murals were digitized.  The project was led by Judy Baca at UCLA. 

 

The subject of “Seeing Through Others Eyes” (2010) is the meeting of RFK and Chaves on March 10, 1968, when Chaves had fasted for 25 days to encourage the United Farm Workers to commit to non-violent protests. Kennedy and Chaves attended a mass along with thousands of workers and supporters, and Chaves broke his fast by accepting and eating bread offered to him by RFK.  Kennedy and Chaves are seated at the center of seven lotus petals that represent the social issues of greatest concern to Kennedy: environment, intolerance, poverty, education, health, and war. The lotus flower is important in Buddhism and Hinduism because of its daily cycle, rising from muddy waters and producing a pristine flower.  It is a symbol of purity, enlightenment, spiritual awakening, overcoming adversity, and renewal. The number seven represents completeness, harmony, spiritual perfection, and wisdom in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. The petal between RFK and Chaves contains a portrait of Oscar Romero, the busboy who held Kennedy’s body when he was shot. In the background is the Million People March.  

On June 6, 1966, Robert Kennedy spoke at the meeting of the National Union of South African Students at the University of Cape Town on their annual Day of Affirmation, when they reaffirmed their commitment to academic and human freedom. He discussed South African apartheid, African-American poverty, and oppression world-wide. He asserted, “Each time a man stands up for an ideal…he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy, and daring those ripples to build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.” Baca chose the title “Tiny Ripples of Hope” for the piece, and she depicted Robert Kennedy, smiling and reaching down to the cheering crowd who lifted their hands up to him, inspired by his message of hope. Behind him the brilliant sunset is in transition to the deep blue, starry night. 

 “La Memoria de la Tierra’’ (2022) (triptych on glass, each panel 10’x26’) was commissioned by a partnership of the UCLA Centennial Commission, the Associated Students of UCLA, and SPARC. The first panel of the triptych (not shown) is a depiction of the history of the campus in Westwood along with the Los Angeles River and native Tongva tribe. The second panel (seen here) is a tribute to the men, women, and important events in the history of the school. At the center of the piece is Baca’s trinity of women. The largest figure represents Toypurina, a Tongva woman who opposed the rule of Spanish missionaries in the Eighteenth Century. To her left is Angela Davis, who was fired from the UCLA faculty for her civil rights activism. At the right is Dolores Huerta, who worked with Ceasar Chaves and the farmworkers. Among the many other persons depicted are John Lewis, Deb Haaland, Martin Luther King, Jr., California Senator Maria Elena Durazo, Authur Ashe, Judy Baca, LA mayor Tom Bradly, Eldridge Cleaver, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Jackie Robinson, George Takei, Vietnam protestors, and Black Lives Matter students. The third panel (not shown) is a depiction of a positive future for UCLA.

Baca’s career is one of major achievements and milestones. Among them is “The World Wall: A Vision of the Future Without Fear,” begun in 1987, with panels added by artists from Finland and the Soviet Union in 1990. Artists from Israel, Palestine, Mexico, and Canada added panels in 2004. Mayor Tom Brady asked Baca in 1988 to create and direct the Neighborhood Pride Program for at-risk youth. It has created over 100 murals throughout the city. She was a co-founder in 1993 of UCLA’s Cesar Chavez Center for Interdisciplinary Studies. The Judith F. Baca Arts Academy, a public school located in the Watts neighborhood, was named after her. Judy Baca was awarded the National Medal of Arts in 2021. 

“Murals are not easel paintings. They’re not individual works created for simple self-expression of your opinion in a public space. To do public works means that you’re making something. A real mural is connected to the architecture in which it’s placed, connected to the people for whom it’s painted and connected to who you paint with. And when it is incredibly well done, it’s like a choreographed dance. (Judy Baca, 1/22/2022) 

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Beverly Hall Smith was a professor of art history for 40 years. Since retiring to Chestertown with her husband Kurt in 2014, she has taught art history classes at WC-ALL and the Institute of Adult Learning, Centreville. An artist, she sometimes exhibits work at River Arts. She also paints sets for the Garfield Theater in Chestertown.