Countywide : Artists Give Clinic Dose of History

Using paintbrushes and the memories of Orange County residents, a group of UC Irvine students has transformed a Santa Ana medical clinic’s bland waiting room into a colorful blend of art and history.

Their mural, dedicated in a ceremony last week, highlights the role in Mexican culture of non-traditional medicine such as spiritual healers and herbal remedies.

“The goal was to liven up the space and address the Latino” community, said Debra Padilla, an associate of UCI Prof. Judith Baca, who oversaw the mural project. “They wanted it to be about healing . . . and the healing process that is so prevalent in Mexicanheritage.”

The students researched the topic by interviewing nurses, doctors and patients at the Clinica Medica Familiar de Santa Ana on Main Street. The clinic serves people from around the county.

Patients shared memories of growing up in rural Mexico, where their grandmothers used herbs to heal ailments, said Padilla, who works with Baca at the Social and Public Art Resource Center in Venice.

The interviews resulted in a colorful mural filled with Aztec and Mayan images. The mural also includes portraits of Nelson Mandela, Emiliano Zapata and Martin Luther King Jr.

The mural displays a variety of herbs and plants known in Mexican folklore for their healing powers. A woman is pictured holding some herbs in her hand.

At the bottom of the mural, children standing next to urban housing projects are shown talking with children from a rural area. Padilla said the scene was placed at the bottom of the work so that the clinic’s young visitors could easily view it.

The mural cost about $1,000 to design and paint. The owner of the clinic paid for most of the costs.

The students are enrolled in UCI’s studio arts program. Baca is a well-known urban muralist who is now designing a half-mile-long mural on a concrete water channel in Los Angeles. Her mural charts the ethnic history of California, Padilla said.