ANAHEIM : Group Pursues Art Amid Development

With a surge of development in Anaheim, ranging from the Koll Anaheim Center downtown to the Anaheim Arena and the Stadium Business Park, one group in the city is working to ensure there is culture amid the construction.

The Art in Public Places Committee, a group within the Anaheim Arts Council, formed seven years ago, but its growth has been gaining momentum in recent years with new development in the city. The Anaheim Arts Council is a volunteer group mandated by City Charter.

“We really encourage businesses to include art elements in their developments,” said Judy Mayer, an artist who chairs the committee.

Through private donations from corporations doing business in Anaheim, such as the Walt Disney Co. and the California Angels, the committee raised about $7,000 this past year. That money was put to work this summer renovating existing art.

Such works, especially the murals of Emigdio Vasquez, had been damaged over the years by weather and graffiti. Two of the murals had to be abandoned completely because they were so badly destroyed, but the council was able to restore two others, Mayer said.

“People would set down their groceries and pick up a scrubber and help us for a while,” Mayer said about the residents who helped to restore the mural on the side of a small Latino market in central Anaheim.

The city commissioned six works by Vasquez during the early 1980s. The Anaheim resident enlisted the help and ideas of high school art students and community members to paint the murals in neighborhoods where they could stand as a deterrent to gang activity. The mural on the market and two in other locations still stand.

“He worked with the community youth to design the murals. It was really an anti-gang project,” Mayer said.

The 30-member group is now working with the city redevelopment agency on the Koll Anaheim Center project, where the developer plans to install artworks. They have not yet been selected.

Next month, the group plans to reward businesss that have supported art at their workplaces.