The 2020 San Migolas Stage Mural

The Mural Takes a Road Trip to Northern California

There is a plaque on the San Migolas stage that describes the mural project in detail (hint…go visit, read the plaque, then take in the art!) To quickly summarize…the project was the brainchild of former HDAE staff member Andrea Vargas to bring student art into the community. She was able to bring two murals to the stage before accepting another job at UCLA, but the HDAE Arts & Culture Committee has taken over facilitation and kept her vision alive.

We are currently on our fifth mural. Along the way, a Resident Assistant named Sydni Baker helped streamline the process and themes were suggested for each of the four different sections (Diversity, I heart UCSB, Community, and the Environment). Every year in the fall, the A&C group accepts submissions for the 4'x16’ space and picks a winner in late January. The new mural is rotated in so that each individual piece remains on the stage for four years. This year’s mural was the replacement for Diversity

We had our largest submission group this year and were pleased to receive many beautiful and thoughtful entries. Several sketches were considered as strong possibilities but the description for Fatima Verduzco’s piece convinced all it was the right one for the stage. Her artwork is very different than anything we’ve promoted in the past so it is exciting to challenge viewers on the topic of Diversity. Her description reads…

“At first glance, my art seems quite simple. I thought a lot about what I wanted to include, and at first I wanted this grand illustration that incorporated elements from different cultures and backgrounds. However, as I thought about what elements I can incorporate from my cultural identity, Latinx, I thought to myself that I often don't find myself relating to symbols or stereotypical elements that are associated with the Hispanic community. So I decided to keep it simple. I wanted to convey that when we strip away our cultural differences, this is when we can truly embrace what makes us diverse.

Adding symbols that I think are representative of other cultures only adds to stereotypes and adds to this label-driven society we live in. The genderless faces and skin colors made up of different shades makes it easy for someone to see themselves as one of these faces in the mural. As a first year, I feel a little bit out of place, as if I am playing the role of a student. So I wanted to make it easy for people to see a face, picture themselves as that face, and have a sense of I am a part of this community, and I am meant to be here.”

Buuuuuutttt…just as Fatima was getting started, life came to a screeching halt with the onset of the pandemic. It usually takes a month or so to get the frame prepared and set up for painting. Fatima was just pulling supplies together and penciling in her design when it was announced that campus was shifting to an all online teaching environment. She was heartbroken that she wasn’t going to be able to finish and had to head home with everyone else.

We stayed in touch over the next several months to see how things were playing out. Later in the summer she said that she might be able to come down every few weekends to work on the mural. This sounded feasible but when I asked where she was going to stay and she said "I was going to sleep in my car” I thought maybe we should find a better plan. ☺ Eventually her father was able to drive down one weekend and pick up the 16 foot long canvas and frame and they headed back to Northern California…maybe never to be seen again!? But of course it was seen again… in late July Fatima gave me a call that it was finished and they would be driving it back down the following weekend. They had to be back home midday so they got up at 3am to make the four hour drive to Santa Barbara…dropped off the finished piece…and headed north to Porterville again. Stopping long enough only for breakfast because…as you know…artists are starving!! Come by and see all of the murals when you are on campus.

*special thanks to EJ Langworthy, Danny Mann, Caesar Martinez, Ishmael Carranza, and Sean Kerkoff who work tirelessly behind the scenes with framing and installation.