Photo: Giant Warrior mural under the Coronado Bridge, San Diego, by Amawikiwinner24, wikimedia commons
by Joanne Tawfilis, PhD, Fine Arts
Measure X is a project of the City of Oceanside’s Neighborhood Outreach Services Department initiated and funded to support anti youth violence, graffiti of public buildings and more importantly to bring community members together in support of peace, unity, and pride of community in which they live. The UNA USA San Diego Art Miles Project was contracted to fulfill the goals and objectives of the project and has successfully completed the first mural of what was to be “several” mural projects, starting with Landes Community Center, culminating with the completion of a seventy- one (71) foot long mural in addition to a thirty five (35) foot children’s wall mural and a twelve (12) foot “Low Rider” wall, reflecting the local neighborhood in transition with an amazing remodeling of that center.
The second phase of the project has been initiated with the support of the “People’s Mayor” Esther Sanchez and City Manager, Jonathon Borrego, who at the request of the local Eastside community local artists and residents, wanted to paint twenty-eight (28) walls versus two (2) walls originally contracted for the Joe Balderrama Park! Keeping within the Measure X budget, the first mural now complete reflects the ideas and art submitted by Laurel Elementary and Jefferson Middle Schools, respectively. The large outlined letters “HOPE” are indicative of historic and traditional memories shared by parents and children who shared those drawings now transformed into the block letters by local volunteer artists. Now all that remains is twenty-seven (27)more surfaces including an entire recreation facility, a handball and basketball court, the Chavez Resource Center and (three) four columned fairly new gazebos strategically located throughout the park.
The goal of Art Miles Mural Project is to work with communities and schools to paint high-quality, community murals representing peace, understanding, and cultural identity. Art Miles has painted nearly 5,000 murals in over 100 countries with over 500,000 people. The focus of this project is not to award a contract to a single muralist, but to bring low-income, opportunity communities together to design and participate in neighborhood mural projects that truly represent the people who live there. The emphasis is on the youth of these communities and their feedback and contributions to the project has and will continue to play an important role.
This project began with a scheduled community meeting to solicit ideas for neighborhood identity, meet with residents regarding their participation, and recruit neighborhood artists to assist. Art Miles collects this information and develops sketches for approval by the Community, the City Council and with a review by other city entities like Parks and Recreation as well as the Arts Commission of Oceanside. The dates were set and community volunteers were then selected. The murals have been sketched onto the walls and then painted by participants with direction and facilitation from the Art Miles founder, Joanne Tawfilis, (PhD, Fine Arts)and then finalized with an anti-graffiti coating applied and the mural unveiled to the public.
The Measure X project, involves images of historical and cultural heritage, playing close attention to inclusiveness and diversity, of the early settlers and residents and in this case several generations of families who still reside in the houses their grandparents built or purchased. Many events in American history have impacted these neighborhoods such as racism, bigotry and more recently gentrification, making people uneasy and often distrustful.
But projects like this, simple as they may seem to be, do bring Indigenous people, diverse and cultured individuals, families, government entities, schools, and fire and police departments to create safe places where because of the homegrown art, anti-graffiti is much less, and instead pride and visual voices radiate the personality of each neighborhood street and loved ones who once lived there and those who remain. Measure X is well on its way to achieving the goals for which it was intended and will be shared with readers over the next few months who will introduce you to some of the inspiring individuals and the murals, who are making it happen. Indian Voices is your picture to the real neighborhoods that if you don’t know much about them, you will and hopefully, yourselves, like me, will understand how Measure X demonstrates how it truly takes a village to create community unity!
