Chavez Bust to Be Show’s Centerpiece

The chiseled shape of Cesar Chavez’s head began emerging from a three-ton block of limestone Wednesday as a team of volunteer sculptors chipped away at a monument to the late activist and the embattled farm workers’ union he founded.

The sculptured bust, which will stand about nine feet tall when finished, will be the centerpiece of this weekend’s show of more than 400 works under the eucalyptus trees at Peter Strauss Ranch in the Agoura area--the largest annual all-sculpture show in the western United States.

The sculptors hope to find an appropriate home for the piece, and say they are willing to part with it for very little. But so far no one has come forward. The sculptors said they contacted the United Farm Workers, but the union faces possible bankruptcy if it loses a lawsuit by a massive lettuce grower.

Meanwhile, the eight sculptors, most of them Anglos, plan to work sunrise to sunset on the project that they consider a labor of love.

“I’m just happy to be doing something on Cesar, because I really admire him,” said 27-year-old Matt Harvey, a Ventura resident and the lead sculptor for the piece. “To me, he symbolizes unity--the fact that if we all come together, we can do anything.”

Despite that positive message, Chavez remains a controversial figure to some, as Harvey and his crew learned. When they went to one Ventura machinist to get a pin to fasten the piece together, they were told to go elsewhere.

“When this guy found out what we were doing, he was really upset and he wouldn’t even sell to us,” Harvey said.

But others donated supplies and volunteered their time. Most of the materials, including the stone itself, were provided by Art City in Ventura, the low-budget sculpting workshop where the idea for the Chavez piece was born. “Everyone at Art City is very emotional about the fact that Chavez was helping poor people and working people, which they feel they are,” said Walt Ingle, president of Golden State Sculptors Assn., which is helping sponsor this weekend’s show.