STORY BY STACY TREVENON
Over the past few weeks, Main Street passersby watched as a brilliant visual representation of the Coastside and Coastsiders, past and present, has taken shape over 500 square feet of the Francis Building.
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Beginning June 23, first a simple grid, then faint outlines of figures, and finally a colorful explosion of Holy Ghost parade participants, buildings at odd angles, a railroad train, mountains and the ocean, and faces, all took form.
"We didn't want a simple mural," Gallego said. "We wanted something artistic and complex, a big painting that would honor the history of Half Moon Bay."
That fit with project proponent Charles Nelson's concept. "It is to show the visual depths of the coast people might not grasp as they walk Main Street," he said. "It is to pay tribute to the people and cultures that founded the city we as Coastsiders all love."
It all began with a customer, Skyline College professor of art Joe Rodriguez, an El Granada resident. "That would be a great wall (on which) to do a mural," he told Nelson and wife Nidia Nelson.
The Nelsons brought Gallego and Dicochea in, in spring 2002.
In their first week, visits to historical sites like the Spanishtown Historical Society, the Johnston House, the Community United Methodist Church or the old jail, and conversations with local historians like Arabella Decker and Marina Fraser and others who knew the community well, like Cameron Palmer, yielded photos and archives. Then, they spent four to six weeks talking more with local residents.
"More than anything, it was a jump-start, sinking our teeth in the project," said Dicochea. "It was pretty much meeting with people and getting an oral history."
The pair came up with a prototype last summer. Nelson got approval from the Architectural Review Commission in September, and secured funding and further approvals from his store, the Main Street Beautification Committee, the Spanishtown Historical Society, the I.D.E.S. Society and the building's owner.
"We wanted this to be a community project," Nelson said.
A fund-raiser was held June 20 at Nuestra Tierra. Scaffolding was donated by the Coastside-based Jerry Epstein Construction Co., and the pair set to work on June 23.
It was only the next step in young but impressive careers.
Gallego, born in 1974 in Nogales, Sonora, Mexico, graduated from the University of Arizona in 1997, where she received the prestigious Gold Medal Robie Senior Award. She has exhibited work in solo and group shows in the United States, Puerto Rico and Mexico. Recently, she received a California Arts Council grant, and her work and biography have been featured in Contemporary Chicana and Chicano Art: Artists, Works, Culture and Education.
Dicochea, born in 1971 in San Luis Rio Colorado, Sonora, Mexico, also studied at the University of Arizona, where he served as vice president of the Cultural Diversity in the Visual Arts organization. He earned advanced degrees in painting and drawing at the San Francisco Art Institute in 1998.
Also a winner of a California Arts Council grant, Dicochea has exhibited from the Arizona-Sonora region to major California cities like San Francisco. His work has also been published in "Contemporary Chicana and Chicano Art" and he is an instructor for several institutions and organizations in the Los Angeles area, where the two live.
After attending the fund-raiser, to "start in a celebratory mode," the two began putting in six days a week, painting mostly from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. with a lunch break.
The artists kept the mural freeform, not square, in keeping with what they'd learned about Half Moon Bay, Dicochea said: "We wanted to follow the contours of the words we heard. Stories would not fit in a box. This seemed to fit the natural curve of the geography."
They got enthusiastic support.
"We didn't hear anything but wonderful things," Dicochea said. "From people who lived all their lives here, little kids, older kids with white hair, (who) tell us they love what they see. That's the part that gets me the most."
The couple estimate they may finish the project in three more weeks, and will have used some eight gallons of the acrylic-based paint they obtained from Nava Color in Culver City. They will add layers of varnish to protect the mural from the sun's rays and poor weather.
A dedication will be held for the mural when it is completed, said Nelson. He gave Aug. 8 as a tentative date, which coincides with a citywide Moonlight Shopping event.
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