IRVINE : An Artist’s Perspective on Health

Visitors to the American Heart Assn.’s Orange County office can see what artist Guillermo Granizo calls his “low-cal” ceramic tile mural reflecting his view of a healthy lifestyle.

The mural, dedicated Friday during a ceremony for the 70-year-old Bay Area artist, decorates the outside of the association’s office. His works also adorn exterior and interior walls at college campuses, airports, banks and many other public places.

The mural, which portrays a “heart-healthy” lifestyle, will help distinguish the association’s building, said Donald Chou, chairman of the association’s board of directors in Orange County.

Granizo’s business partner, Paul Drozd, chose the heart association’s Irvine office and arranged for the artist to be supplied with brochures, photographs and other promotional material to help paint an appropriate design.

Granizo, who began painting at age 50 after several years as art director of NBC-affiliate KRON-TV in San Francisco, said he spent 12- to 16-hour days painting the mural onto ceramic tiles over two weeks in order to be finished in February, the association’s American Heart Month.

The 8-by-10-foot mural, titled “Heartland,” depicts children jogging, swinging and picking fruit from colorful and abundant trees. Other children cook fish that another child is taking from a stream. Two adults operate a “Low-Fat Dairy Treats.”

“It represents all things that are healthy,” Granizo said. “Being outdoors is healthy. Climbing trees, on the swings.”

Faces of the people in the mural are two-toned, giving them the appearance of being of two races. Some are half white and half black, or half Asian and half Latino. All of the people who inhabit his more recent artworks, Granizo said, have some form of duality.

The duality helps show that we are all part of the same human race, he said.

The mural is visible to motorists driving by the heart association’s office at the corner of Campus Drive and California Avenue on the UC Irvine campus.

The high-temperature kiln firing of the tiles makes the mural almost immune to the elements.

That lasting aspect of tile murals makes it an interesting medium, he said.

“It will outlast the building and it will outlast life on Earth,” Granizo said. “It’s interesting to know that when I’m long gone, people will still be looking at it and wondering who was that nut.”