Judy Baca

Judith Francisca Baca(born September 25, [1950] ) is an American artist, activist, and University of California, Los Angeles professor of fine arts. She is the founder and executive director of the Venice, California-based Social and Public Art Resource Center (SPARC), a community arts center, and is best known as the director of the mural project that created one of the largest murals in the world, the "Great Wall of Los Angeles".

Baca was born in East Los Angeles, California to Mexican American parents. She was raised in an all-female home. Her grandmother was an herbal healer, which profoundly influenced her sense of indigenous Chicano culture. Baca was present at the 1970 Chicano Moratorium, an anti-war action of the Chicano Movement. She earned Bachelor's and Master's degrees in art from California State University, Northridge (CSUN). In 1974, she founded Los Angeles' first mural program, which produced over 400 murals. In 1976, she founded SPARC. In 1977, she attended a workshop at the Taller Siqueiros in Cuernavaca, Mexico, to learn muralism techniques. Baca began a professorship at University of California, Irvine in 1980. In 1988, Mayor of Los Angeles Tom Bradley commissioned her to create the Neighborhood Pride Program, a citywide project to paint murals. The project employed over 1,000 at-risk youth and is responsible for over 80 murals throughout the city. In 1993, she co-founded UCLA's Cesar Chavez Center for Interdisciplinary Studies, an institution for which she serves as vice chair. In 1998, Baca organized a traveling mural dedicated to world peace called "The World Wall: A Vision of the Future without Fear". June 2008 Judy spoke at the "Against the Wall: The ruin and renewal of LA's murals" panel held at Morono Kiang Gallery across the street from the famous "Pope of Broadway" mural.

Baca's work Danzas Indigenas at the Metrolink station in Baldwin Park, California contains a quote from the Chicana writer Gloria Anzaldua reads, "This land was Mexican once, was Indian always and is, and will be again." The other read "It was better before they came." About the first quote, Joseph Turner of Save Our State stated, "It's seditious. It essentially talks about returning this land to Mexico." About the second quote SOS claims the referent of "they" is "white people"

Important works

* "La Memoria de Nuestra Tierra", a mural for Denver International Airport
* "La Memoria de Nuestra Tierra: California", a mural at the University of Southern California
* "The Great Wall of Los Angeles", a Los Angeles landmark
* A memorial for Cesar Chavez in San Jose
* A monument for Martin Luther King, Jr. in San Diego
* "Danzas Indígenas", a monument in Baldwin Park, California that was protested by Save Our State, an anti-illegal immigration group
* "The World Wall: A Vision of the Future without Fear", a travelling mural.

References

* Fernandez, Mayra. "Judy Baca, artist". Cleveland: Modern Curriculum Press, 1994. ISBN 0-8136-5276-6.
* Hammond, Harmony. "Lesbian art in America: a contemporary history". New York: Rizzoli, 2000. ISBN 0-8478-2248-6.
* Olmstead, Mary. "Judy Baca". Chicago: Raintree, 2005. ISBN 1-4109-0915-8.
* Telgen, Diane, and Jim Kamp, editors. "Latinas! : women of achievement". Detroit: Visible Ink Press, 1996. ISBN 0-7876-0883-1.
* "Las Mujeres: Mexican American/Chicana women: photographs and biographies of seventeen women from the Spanish colonial period to the present". Windsor: National Women’s History Project, 1995. ISBN 0-938625-34-9. judith is my best friendBold text

External links

* [http://www.judybaca.com Official site]
* [http://www.chavez.ucla.edu/jb_bio.html Judy Baca] biography from UCLA Chavez Institute
* [http://mati.eas.asu.edu:8421/ChicanArte/html_pages/BacaIssOutl.html#artmaker Judith Baca's "Olympic Champions, 1948-1964, Breaking Barriers"] from the Hispanic Research Center at Arizona State University
* [http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/042898israel-mural.html " Jews and Arabs, Painting a Mural Together, Find a Mosaic of Distrust"] "New York Times", April 28, 1998