JUDY BACA Biography - Other artists & entretainers

 
 

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JUDY BACA

Name: Judith Francisca Baca                                                       
Born: 20 September 1946                                                           
                                                                                 
Judith Francisca Baca (born September 20, 1946) is an American artist, activist, 
and University of California, Los Angeles professor of fine arts. She is the     
founder and executive director of the Venice, California-based Social and Public 
Art Resource Center (SPARC), a community arts center, and is best known as the   
director of the mural project that created one of the largest murals in the       
world, the Great Wall of Los Angeles.                                             
                                                                                 
Baca was born in East Los Angeles, California to Mexican American parents. She   
was raised in an all-female home. Her grandmother was an herbal healer, which     
profoundly influenced her sense of indigenous Chicano culture. Baca was present   
at the 1970 Chicano Moratorium, an anti-war action of the Chicano Movement. She   
earned Bachelor's and Master's degrees in art from California State University,   
Northridge (CSUN). In 1974, she founded Los Angeles's first mural program, which 
produced over 400 murals. In 1976, she founded SPARC. In 1977, she attended a     
workshop at the Taller Siqueiros in Cuernavaca, Mexico, to learn muralism         
techniques. Baca began a professorship at University of California, Irvine in     
1980. In 1988, Mayor of Los Angeles Tom Bradley commissioned her to create the   
Neighborhood Pride Program, a citywide project to paint murals. The project       
employed over 1,000 at-risk youth and is responsible for over 80 murals           
throughout the city. In 1993, she co-founded UCLA's Cesar Chavez Center for       
Interdisciplinary Studies, an institution for which she serves as vice chair. In 
1998, Baca organized a travelling mural dedicated to world peace called The       
World Wall: A Vision of the Future without Fear.