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Juana Alicia
Juana Alicia (born 1953) is an American muralist, printmaker, educator, activist and, painter. She has been an educator for forty years. Juana Alicia, as part of the faculty Berkeley City College, founded and directed the True Colors Public Art program. Her sculptures and murals are principally located in the San Francisco Bay Area, Nicaragua, Mexico, Pennsylvania, and in many parts of California.
Juana Alicia was born in Newark, New Jersey in 1953. She grew up in an African American community near the Detroit Institute of Art (DIA) in Detroit, Michigan.
Alicia attended the University of California Santa Cruz earning her Bachelor of Arts (BA) in Teaching Aesthetic Awareness from a Cultural Perspective, with a Bilingual Cross-Cultural Emphasis Credential in 1979. Alicia also received her Single Subjects Credential in Art Education in 1980. Three years later, in 1983, Alicia earned her Fifth Year Certificate in Bilingual Education, and received her Master of Fine Arts (M.F.A.) in Drawing and Painting from San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI) in May 1990.
In 1972, Juana Alicia was recruited by labor organizer Cesar Chavez on one of his national speaking tours, to work for the United Farmworkers Union as an artist. She moved to Salinas, California during the peak of the United Farm Worker Movement. Instead of doing direct cultural work, Juana Alicia went to work in the agricultural fields as a field organizer. During the strikes in Salinas in 1973 and 1976, she worked for FreshPict, a strawberry grower. She also worked for Interharvest, a United Fruit-owned lettuce company. She worked up until September 1976 in the fields but then stopped because at the time she was seven months pregnant with her son and was exposed to pesticide poisoning. The poisoning led to chronic pneumonia which she suffered for several years.
After working in the fields, Alicia worked as a paraprofessional in a bilingual classroom next to the hiring hall for the United Farm Workers. Her son was born in December 1976 and she never went back to work in the fields. In 1981, she moved to the Mission District of San Francisco and began to exhibit her art, all while working outside of the arts to make ends meet. Juana Alicia has taught at Stanford University, University of California Santa Cruz, University of California Davis, San Francisco State University, and Berkeley City College. Dedicated to the development of young artists, she co-founded and co-directed the San Francisco Early Childhood School for the Creative Arts and the East Bay Center for Urban Arts. Through her teaching jobs, Juana Alicia has fostered several generations of young muralists and activist artists.
Alicia's painting style is colorful, complex and dynamic. Through her art, she attempts to convey a sense of shared humanity and appreciation for the environment. Alicia paints in a style that blends realism, abstraction and surrealism together, as needed depending on her subject matter.
Juana Alicia's first big mural project in San Francisco was Las Lechugeras (The Women Lettuce Workers). It is located on the corner of York and 24th Street in Mission District, San Francisco. The mural is thirty by fifty feet and was begun in 1982. The building the mural is painted on is a Mexican meat market and the owner specified that they wanted a mural that had something to do with food. Alicia came up with a design and immediately she faced criticism that seemed insensitive and racist, but she stood by her work and the design was approved and became the final mural. The mural's main focus is on six women harvesting lettuce heads. One of the women is pregnant (and her uterus is transparent, allowing the viewer to see the fetus) and the others are picking lettuce, wrapping it in plastic or looking out at the field. An airplane sprays pesticides overhead while white men driving in a car pass by. The mural is in a public area and is meant to be community art. This mural depicted female workers and their struggles against working conditions and pesticide poisoning in California. Her experience as a female farm worker as well as an organizer for the United Farm Workers helped shape the mural's content, and so the mural itself is autobiographical. In addition, Alicia intended the mural to be for the largely Latino neighborhood where she painted it. She also wanted viewers, especially American viewers, to think about where their food comes from and who is involved in its production. Las Lechugeras is also significant because of its feminist message in its depiction of strong women at work. It also has a strong environmental and human rights message signified by the crop duster which sprays the workers with no regard to health.
Over time, the mural has degraded from weathering. Alicia has tried several times to raise money to restore the mural, although she would prefer to do a permanent mosaic based on the mural in its place.
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Juana Alicia
Juana Alicia (born 1953) is an American muralist, printmaker, educator, activist and, painter. She has been an educator for forty years. Juana Alicia, as part of the faculty Berkeley City College, founded and directed the True Colors Public Art program. Her sculptures and murals are principally located in the San Francisco Bay Area, Nicaragua, Mexico, Pennsylvania, and in many parts of California.
Juana Alicia was born in Newark, New Jersey in 1953. She grew up in an African American community near the Detroit Institute of Art (DIA) in Detroit, Michigan.
Alicia attended the University of California Santa Cruz earning her Bachelor of Arts (BA) in Teaching Aesthetic Awareness from a Cultural Perspective, with a Bilingual Cross-Cultural Emphasis Credential in 1979. Alicia also received her Single Subjects Credential in Art Education in 1980. Three years later, in 1983, Alicia earned her Fifth Year Certificate in Bilingual Education, and received her Master of Fine Arts (M.F.A.) in Drawing and Painting from San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI) in May 1990.
In 1972, Juana Alicia was recruited by labor organizer Cesar Chavez on one of his national speaking tours, to work for the United Farmworkers Union as an artist. She moved to Salinas, California during the peak of the United Farm Worker Movement. Instead of doing direct cultural work, Juana Alicia went to work in the agricultural fields as a field organizer. During the strikes in Salinas in 1973 and 1976, she worked for FreshPict, a strawberry grower. She also worked for Interharvest, a United Fruit-owned lettuce company. She worked up until September 1976 in the fields but then stopped because at the time she was seven months pregnant with her son and was exposed to pesticide poisoning. The poisoning led to chronic pneumonia which she suffered for several years.
After working in the fields, Alicia worked as a paraprofessional in a bilingual classroom next to the hiring hall for the United Farm Workers. Her son was born in December 1976 and she never went back to work in the fields. In 1981, she moved to the Mission District of San Francisco and began to exhibit her art, all while working outside of the arts to make ends meet. Juana Alicia has taught at Stanford University, University of California Santa Cruz, University of California Davis, San Francisco State University, and Berkeley City College. Dedicated to the development of young artists, she co-founded and co-directed the San Francisco Early Childhood School for the Creative Arts and the East Bay Center for Urban Arts. Through her teaching jobs, Juana Alicia has fostered several generations of young muralists and activist artists.
Alicia's painting style is colorful, complex and dynamic. Through her art, she attempts to convey a sense of shared humanity and appreciation for the environment. Alicia paints in a style that blends realism, abstraction and surrealism together, as needed depending on her subject matter.
Juana Alicia's first big mural project in San Francisco was Las Lechugeras (The Women Lettuce Workers). It is located on the corner of York and 24th Street in Mission District, San Francisco. The mural is thirty by fifty feet and was begun in 1982. The building the mural is painted on is a Mexican meat market and the owner specified that they wanted a mural that had something to do with food. Alicia came up with a design and immediately she faced criticism that seemed insensitive and racist, but she stood by her work and the design was approved and became the final mural. The mural's main focus is on six women harvesting lettuce heads. One of the women is pregnant (and her uterus is transparent, allowing the viewer to see the fetus) and the others are picking lettuce, wrapping it in plastic or looking out at the field. An airplane sprays pesticides overhead while white men driving in a car pass by. The mural is in a public area and is meant to be community art. This mural depicted female workers and their struggles against working conditions and pesticide poisoning in California. Her experience as a female farm worker as well as an organizer for the United Farm Workers helped shape the mural's content, and so the mural itself is autobiographical. In addition, Alicia intended the mural to be for the largely Latino neighborhood where she painted it. She also wanted viewers, especially American viewers, to think about where their food comes from and who is involved in its production. Las Lechugeras is also significant because of its feminist message in its depiction of strong women at work. It also has a strong environmental and human rights message signified by the crop duster which sprays the workers with no regard to health.
Over time, the mural has degraded from weathering. Alicia has tried several times to raise money to restore the mural, although she would prefer to do a permanent mosaic based on the mural in its place.