“The mural had fallen into disrepair, its imagery so faded from the sun that some shapes were barely recognizable. On a trip to L.A. in 2017 to restore one of his murals, Davis visited Watts Towers and noted what terrible shape the work was in. It gnawed at him, how fragile the mural was, slowly and quietly deteriorating in plain sight.” — The Los Angeles Times
The mural-lined Watts Towers campus is currently at the end of a three-year conservation effort being overseen by LACMA. The largest is artist Alonzo Davis’ tribute to acclaimed visual artist and former Watts Towers Arts Center director John Outterbridge, who died last year. Davis, who founded Leimert Park’s famed Brockman Gallery, executed the painting in 1980 but has since become unable to do the restoration work himself.
In his place, a team of local artists is working to clean the mural in time for next month and very much in the spirit Outterbridge’s vision of intergenerational artist mentorship and community involvement.
“It represents his spirit and sense of community, symbols that reflected my thinking about him,” Davis told the LA Times. “The mural may have faded, but his memory won’t.”
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