Judith F. Baca's sketch for a proposed mural at Estrada Courts (1974)

For this week's post, I wanted to talk about one of my favorite of Judith F. Baca's works: a sketch for a proposed mural at Estrada Courts from 1974. I could not find a picture of it online, but you can find it on page 90 of the assigned Judith F. Baca book.

Although never painted as a mural, I think this sketch exemplifies a lot of Baca's style as an artist and qualifies as an "artwork" under Professor Lopez's definition of there being a lot of "work" put into this piece. The sketch portrays a sort of circle of life--at least, the circle of life lived out by Chicana/Latina women. The circle begins by a woman giving birth to a boy, only for him to turn into a soldier or a cholo. He then goes after other women and their children, only to kill them or be killed. The women mourn their deaths, only to give birth to another man and restart the cycle.

Because this sketch was worked on solely by Baca, and not other members of her mural-making team, Baca's unadulterated style shines through--as the book mentions, it is not always easy to differentiate between where Baca ends and where her organization, SPARC, begins. In particular, this image speaks to Baca's willingness to portray an oppositional view to the status quo in her art, challenging the traditional roles for women and even criticizing women's participation in men's destruction.