Artists Fight to Preserve Their Mural Recording City’s Struggles

Much as struggles and hardships are depicted on its mural spanning half a mile in a Van Nuys flood control channel, an organization of artists that spent seven years painting the expansive “Great Wall of Los Angeles” is entrenched in its own battle.

Faced with watching their work peel, crack and fade, the artists hope to find funding to restore the weather-beaten mural lest they lose what some consider a cultural landmark.

“Not restoring the wall would be a continuation of the images in the mural,” said Judith Baca, the artist who conceived the work, which the Guinness Book of World Records has deemed the longest in the world. “How we maintain this wall will determine how we will deal with the future of our city. This is about preserving the energy of all the people who contributed to this project and the stories told in the mural.”

The concrete channel’s west wall was transformed into a large-scale history book, artistically detailing the city’s founding and the progress and setbacks of ethnic groups from the late 1700s to the 1950s.

That history included the razing of a Mexican American neighborhood in Chavez Ravine to build Dodger Stadium in 1959, Hollywood’s notorious blacklisting in the 1950s of people suspected of Communist connections, and the 1943 “zoot suit” riots, when servicemen on leave attacked and injured 44 Mexican Americans, who were subsequently arrested but whose assailants were not.

Baca, 53, was employed by the Los Angeles Recreation and Parks Department in the early 1970s when city officials supported her artistic blueprint for socially responsible murals based on the neighborhoods where they are displayed.

In 1976 she founded the Social and Public Art Resource Center, a nonprofit agency devoted to community-based artworks. When she designed the “Great Wall,” which borders Valley College in Valley Glen, she turned more than 250 juvenile offenders with creative edges into painters to help with its creation.

Recognizing the mural as a Los Angeles monument, the City Council approved a motion earlier this month directing several public agencies to work with the L.A. Cultural Affairs Department to secure funds for its restoration and report back to the council within 30 days.

“This is a significant piece of the city’s history that lies in the Valley,” said Councilman Alex Padilla. “Just like our streets, it’s easier to preserve something when you maintain it. We want to ensure that the wall is preserved for future generations.”

Baca estimates that it will cost about $500,000 to restore the artwork and add viewing stations along an adjacent walkway.

Although the mural appears to be in good shape to the average eye, Mother Nature has taken a toll. Baca said there are deep fissures underneath the surfaces of some of the oldest panels that could cause large sections to break off.

The art resource center has twice applied unsuccessfully for county Proposition A park money for the mural restoration. The organization’s Neighborhood Pride program, which designs and paints murals citywide, has received allocations from the city for mural projects, but that funding has decreased in recent years, Baca said. In 1988 the center got more than $400,000 from the city; in 1999, the amount was $189,000, she said.

A five-member panel appointed last year by the Cultural Affairs Department was asked to assess the city’s public murals and report which ones needed immediate attention. The panel plans to select 10 murals to share a $200,000 conservation grant.

Michael Several, a historian working with the panel, said that although the group agrees on the importance of the “Great Wall,” its sheer size poses a problem.

“The ‘Great Wall’ is a very large project, and [its restoration] would probably take more money than this entire grant,” he said. “If it’s going to be done professionally, it’s going to cost a lot of money.”

Adolfo Nodal, general manager of the Cultural Affairs Department, said it is unlikely that the city will pay for the entire restoration. He added that private donations could be sought to cover the remainder.

“This is the perfect project to tie private and public funding together,” he said. “This is going to be a massive project, and the funding is going to have to come from different sources.”

The “Great Wall” was a community project and should stay that way, said Baca, who refuses to let anyone work on the mural except members of the art resource center and youths in its Neighborhood Pride program.

“I’d rather see it torn down before I let” outsiders work on it, she said.

The mural is a major part of the city’s cultural canvas, a community treasure that should be cherished, she said.

“There have been a lot of young people who gave their summers to help us out,” she said. “It was an experience that transformed their lives.”

One of those was Marie Sandoval, now 47 and an employee of the Los Angeles County Probation Department. She was only 23 when she first learned about the mural. Working with inner-city children at the time, Sandoval was amazed by the impact it had on them.

“We took a lot of pride in our work,” she said. “I remember finishing up the first panel, looking behind me and seeing all these people watching us. It was quite an accomplishment.”