It's a sunny afternoon in late summer. Jazz blares from an old Volvo parked in the schoolyard, and some high school students laze in the soccer field nearby. Behind them, a man in a floppy hat stands on a ladder, his face shadowed as he reaches up with his paintbrush to the mural in front of him.
Despite appearances, the group is at work—and for 20 teens from East Palo Alto, this is a dream job. For $9 an hour, they’re transforming a couple of barren walls outside Cesar Chavez elementary school into a colorful community landmark. For the last six weeks, they’ve been hanging out in the sun, painting and talking with friends.
The mural assistants aren’t replicating the generic flowers, animals or rainbows found in countless playground paintings. Working with a professional muralist, they have created two scenes. One depicts a father and his daughter, who sports a United Farm Workers emblem on her jersey. The other shows a soccer match in which the victorious players hold up a plaque that says “City of East Palo Alto est. 1983.” The artists use a stenciling technique called pouncing, whereby the original sketch is enlarged and projected onto huge sheets of butcher paper attached to the wall, holes are punched to outline the image, and charcoal is forced through the holes, transferring the outline to the wall.
Images on the mural celebrate the multiethnic heritage of East Palo Alto. Three flowers flanking each side of the diptych represent major ethnic groups in the community of 30,000: Pacific Islander, Latino and African-American. (The city is roughly 40 percent Hispanic, 27 percent white, 23 percent black, and the remainder mostly Asian.)
The East Palo Alto Mural Art Project is the brainchild of Vanessa Fleming, art director of the city’s Boys and Girls Club, and Sonya Clark-Herrera, a resident who formerly represented artists in New York. Clark-Herrera initially proposed creating a mural with the Boys and Girls Club, and Fleming convinced the board of directors to support it. Fleming, ’00, who majored in art and creative writing, says the project has caught the attention of local school administrators and several have lobbied her for murals at their campuses.
But for now, the group is booked, with plans to create four murals in the city’s Ravenswood School District over the next year. Other Stanford people are involved in the project: attorney Eugene Clark-Herrera, JD ’01, a former teacher, is community outreach and education coordinator, and human biology major Zach Pogue, ’03, manages the website. The University commissioned a mural depicting the Stanford-East Palo Alto relationship. It will be on display at the Cantor Center during the University’s Community Day open house on April 7.
“This isn’t about kids slapping paint on a wall,” says LaDoris Cordell, JD ’74, Stanford’s vice provost for campus relations. Cordell was so impressed by the teenagers’ thoroughness and professionalism that she has been auctioning some of her own artwork and donating the proceeds—$13,000 to date—to the group.
So far, every student who has applied for a job as mural assistant has been accepted
but only after interviewing with Fleming and Clark-Herrera and completing an application that includes drawing a landscape and defining primary, secondary and complementary colors. They also must attend a two-week training workshop.
“People don’t realize how much work goes into these murals,” says participant Veronica Hernandez, a freshman from the city’s new Aspire Charter High School. The students began by interviewing local activists to learn more about the history of East Palo Alto. They brainstormed themes, such as diversity and pride, then rolled up their sleeves and started creating “Unite.”
Students joined the project for varying reasons. Miguel Hernandez wanted the art experience and showed his personal sketchpad daily to the staff artist, Omar Ramirez. Others, like Jesse Camper, applied because they didn’t want to watch TV all summer. But in the end, each felt a sense of accomplishment. As Jesse says of the finished product, “it’s pretty cool.”
Measuring 80 feet by 12 feet, it’s also pretty striking. Now, there’s a new way to direct drivers along Bay Road: turn right—or left—at the mural.
