Artists and supporters gathered from around the nation Saturday to honor the completed restoration of one of the world’s longest murals. The half-mile long monument to American interracial harmony was launched in 1976, but it received its last restorative brushstroke the night before the gathering.
California Chicana muralist Judy Baca brought together more than 400 youth and their families to make the original piece. Under her creative direction it was formed over five summers until its completion in 1981. The colorful expression of California history covers the dawn of man through modern events. The mural snakes its way down the Tujunga Wash Flood Control Channel on Coldwater Canyon Avenue, between Burbank Boulevard and Oxnard Street.
The masterpiece offers a different point of view from what we often learn in textbooks. It’s a living testimony to the interconnectedness of historical events. Baca, a distinguished UCLA professor, brought together community youth to “work with artists, oral historians, ethnologists, scholars and hundreds of community members,” as described on the NoHo Arts District website, to create a piece that connects events which have shaped the Sunshine State.
“If we don’t remember the past, we are forced to repeat it,” Baca said when addressing the work’s supporters at the restoration party. Strategically placed in front of Ulysses Grant High School and Los Angeles Valley College, the mural instructs students of their past in a non-traditional way.
The Great Wall of Los Angeles serves as a statement of free speech while connecting modern man to our artistic predecessors.
