Chicana activist Debra J.T. Padilla drove her 1964 Ford Galaxy from Tucson, Arizona to Venice to become the new Executive Director of SPARC in 1993. In her first week, the accidental murder of a young Latina girl at the hands of neighborhood gangs at the intersection of Venice and Lincoln Boulevard solidified her reasons for taking the job. The role of public art as a tool to organize, empower and promote cross-cultural dialogue for the disenfranchised has been Padilla's goal since arrival. SPARC's role has since expanded to embrace three main areas of development: production, education and preservation.
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JUDSON STUDIOS
In 1867, William Lees Judson founded the Colonial Glass Company in Garvanza. Judson, a skilled painter and craftsman, had originally come to the area because he thought the climate might be suitable for a weak constitution.
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PLEIN AIR
Plein Air was a style of painting descended from French Impressionism, the French term for "open air" indicating the artist painted outdoors.
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ARTS & CRAFTS MOVEMENT
In the midst of the Industrial Revolution, a desire for the handmade craftsmanship of wares and decorative items begin to influence design philosophies in Great Britain. This movement spread throughout Europe and then to North America and became what we now know as the Arts and Crafts movement. Southern Californian artists and architects involved in this movement found special forms of inspiration and opportunity along the Arroyo Seco.
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GARVANZA
Originally, Garvanza was one of the many sectioned plots of the Rancho San Rafael and was mainly a collection of garbanzo bean fields - hence its original name "Garbanzo."
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Isabel Rojas-Williams says :
Debra, I am delighted about the three segments you did for KCET. I am constantly meeting artists who, at one time or another and because of their connection with SPARC, found their voices and their sense of identity through the murals they helped to create. Many of us, if not all of us, have been inspired by what we have seen in our Los Angeles "open air" galleries. SPARC’s seminal role in our communities parallels that of your definition of how muralism is taught, from mentor to mentee; SPARC has inspired people such as me to help others to find their voices through art and to help empower them with a sense of belonging within our L.A.’s diverse communities. What could be more fitting than for SPARC to have the gang truce peace meeting at its headquarters in the early 90s; for Judy Baca to create “The Wall” mural depicting our history, and mostly for SPARC giving a voice and a sense of identity to all those young people from underserved communities that helped in the creation of “The Wall?” Thank you and SPARC for the great job you do in our communities throughout Los Angeles! Art heals, art saves, art empowers, art inspires.