Judith F. Baca - Mi Abuelita

Judith F. Baca is a monumental Chicana muralist and multi-media artist from Los Angeles, California. She is known for many artworks, having a socially engaged art practice, and co-founding Social and Public Art Resource Center (SPARC) located in Venice, California. Her most famous social engaged art project was the creation of The Great Wall of Los Angeles located in the Tujunga green belt in the San Fernando Valley. For murals such as the Great Wall and other works, Baca worked alongside hundreds of at-risk youths and their families. Judy Baca worked with rival gang members to create Mi Abuelita (1971), which was the first mural Baca created and the first mural ever created by a Chicana artist. It was once located at the iconic Hollenbeck Park in the Boyle Heights neighborhood of East Los Angeles. The mural was painted with acrylic on cement on the inside of a band shell, which was eventually demolished. The mural was a large image of a grandmother, the matriarch- referencing the image of Baca’s own grandmother, painted with dark skin, braids in buns, and her arms extended open and out toward the viewer. Baca used her family/personal life experience in this public work to point at different social and political issues surrounding the Chicana community.