The Martinez Experimental Wall
The “Black Lives Matter”-inspired CCA community discussion forums in the Fall of 2014 and the destruction of the “walking Stick” mural in January 2015 promptd a re-engagement of the Martinez Wall as a vital site for public dialogue in the college community. Students of color and allies expressed a need for today’s arts education to include a more social consciousness, greater diversity in art history, and a faculty body more reflective of the diversity of the country. In response, a team of six students was recruited through the ENGAGE: Mural Arts Course and student and faculty recommendations to paint a new mural in the summer of 2015 that addressed cultural diversity at CCA and within the arts. The mural focuses on Califia, a warrior queen who ruled over a kingdom of balck women living on the mythical island of California. Inspired by the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe and the story of Juan Diego, this representaitonof Califia manifests quailities of sacredness and devotion. She represents not just a people and culture but the actual land of California. Both the natural and political landscape that sourrounds her becomes an extension of the fabric of her mantle. Juan Diego, represented by a black boy in a hoodie, offers light, water and corn on a filed of orange poppies to his queen. He symbolizes the historic and contemporary struggle for freedom and equality while Queen Califia symbolizes an untamed and bountiful land prior to European colonization. The four quadrants of the mural surrounding Califia depict (clockwise from top to left): the range of creative practices CCA students can use for activism; Mexica dancers (Aztec dancers) that through ceremonies at local events represent the region’s cultural connection to Mexican traditions; the rich history of Bay Area radicalism that established Ethnic Studies at our public universities and initiated Black Studies at CCA, the root of today’s Diversity Studies; the contemporary Ohlone-the first peoples of the East Bay-who’s traditions and creative practices remain vital. Since at least 1971, the wall on Martinez Hall has been a visual public forum for community dialogue at CCA. The series of temporary murals (some lasting as briefly as one year and others as long as 13 years) have expressed aesthetic and political concerns and reflected the changing nature of the school. This new campus mural will remain on view for the next two or three years. With public murals experiencing a creative resurgence, mural art continues to be relevant to artistic education and a dynamic form in which to cultivate diversity at CCA. |
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