SANTA ANA : Artist to Do Replica of His Popular Mural

For almost two weeks, Emigdio Vasquez has spent most of his time outside the Santa Ana Transit Terminal with a paintbrush in his hand, re-creating the history of Orange County.

The 51-year-old artist has begun work on an ambitious mural filled with images of the county’s past. For a canvas, he is using an 85-foot-long stretch of terminal wall that runs alongside Santa Ana Boulevard between Broadway and Ross Street.

“People walk by and give me the thumbs up sign,” Vasquez said. “Some honk, or just smile. A lot of them tell me they think there should be more murals around like in Los Angeles.”

Vasquez, who lives in Orange, has created 20 murals during his 30-year career. He said he enjoys creating the enormous works of art, but this particular project is one he has mixed feelings about, mainly because he has painted it once before.

In 1987, while Vasquez was the artist-in-residence at Bowers Museum in Santa Ana, he painted an almost identical 100-foot-long mural on a wall at the museum. Earlier this year, he was told that it would have to be demolished to make way for the museum’s $12-million expansion project.

“The mural has been very, very well-received in the community and has a lot of loyalty attached to it,” said Jose De Falla, museum director. “We are very pleased to be able to work out an arrangement so that the mural will continue its life.”

Extracting the mural from the wall would have been too costly, according to museum officials, so they opted to find another location for it to be redone. Vasquez will be paid $16,000 for the replica, which will require about 20 gallons of acrylic paint.

The new project has helped ease the pain the artist said he felt when he learned the original work was going to be destroyed.

“Initially, I was devastated,” Vasquez said. ‘But, I’m happy to some degree that I’m going to get to do a replica of it. And, more people will get to see it here because it’s in a much more visible location.”