American Spirit! This Mural remembers and honors the fallen on September 11th. On the 20th Anniversary, the Lindsay Museum & Gallery will remember 9/11 by placing a sign at the mural to honor the brave Americans who lost their life that day.
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Secretary Judyth Dreiger: judythd@lindsaymurals.org
The Lindsay Mural Society has attended many Mural Symposiums. Carolyn Callison, the Lindsay Chamber of Commerce director in 2001, attended one of the first symposiums. It was held in 29 Palms, CA. She came back all excited about Lindsay hosting the 2003 symposium. And we did! It was a great success because of a lot of work on the part of our former Lindsay City Manager and Mural Society Vice President Bill and Carolyn Drennen.
Our Mural Society continued to attend the 2005 symposium in Bishop, CA and in 2007 we went to Manteca. At each of these invigorating events, we met some great muralists. John Pugh, Colleen Mitchell Veyna, Art Mortimer, Wei Luan to name a few… We are fortunate to have murals by all of these artists.
Our Goals and Intentions:
Currently, we are in a maintenance mode. We continue to monitor and repair our murals as needed.
Our future plans include several new murals, including one that will pay tribute to the Lindsay Ripe Olive Company that was in Lindsay until 1990. Many people that had family or worked in the olive industry will be great supporters of this next mural. We will need to raise money for this, and we have some support coming in 2018 from the Lindsay Cultural Arts Society. We plan to place this new mural on the east side of the new Lindsay Library on Mirage.
Another mural planned would be a replacement mural for Decades of Quality Citrus that was lost in a packing house fire in 2016. It honored an old Lindsay citrus family.
In addition, our Lindsay Mural Society brochure will need updating. Changes happen over time, and with a new mural we want to include it.
And, we always are happy to add new members. If you are interested please contact us through our Secretary Judyth Dreiger: judythd@lindsaymurals.org
We Can Use Your Special Skills:
We are compiling a current list of artists, muralists, carpenters, painters, gardeners, and people interested in being part of our vision of bringing Murals and Public Art into our lovely Lindsay.
Our Purpose:
• To help preserve and promote the cultural, ethnic and historical roots of Lindsay, in a manner that citizens and children will have some sense of who they are and where they came from and a sense of community.
• To build pride in our community and to use public art as a tool to build bridges across barriers between ethnic and cultural groups.
• To help beautify and revitalize historical Lindsay downtown by establishing public art and promoting tourism.
Our Early History:
Perhaps one of the first indications of a Mural Committee in Lindsay was dramatically portrayed by the dynamic improvement in the Community Theater facade, which features Lindsay’s first mural. This mural, again, marked the Lindsay Community Theater as a landmark in our community. That dynamic improvement is what the Mural Committee wanted to achieve; and what the Mural Committee continues to work toward with future murals. The subsequent murals continue to add interest to walls around our lovely town.
But wait, let’s look back at what it took to get that first mural project launched.
To quote former Mayor Saucedo, “Our mural project did not just happen overnight...;” it began at the Chamber of Commerce. At the time, a request was made in the community for artists to talk to the director of the Chamber of Commerce and following those planning meetings, to submit renderings depicting aspects of those discussions. Several renderings were submitted by various artists and the Discovery painting by Josie Figueroa was selected for the theater’s north wall. All looked good. Then, the unthinkable happened.
The 1990 winter brought the worst freeze in California history. The citrus industry, packing houses, pickers, and associated businesses were literally brought to a grinding halt. In 1991 General Cable, Lindsay’s second largest business closed due to the corporation’s decision to move the firm East. Closely on the heels on their closure, Lindsay Olive Growers, Lindsay’s largest business, declared bankruptcy and more residents lost their jobs. There was no extra money in the town to hardly keep the streets clean let alone pay for a mural. That is the legacy of Lindsay’s murals.
A few folks never lost the hope of the beautiful trompe l’oeil scene which now graces the north wall of the renovated Lindsay Community Theater is the site of the first of many murals for Lindsay. This is Discovery by Ms. Josie Figueroa. Community Theater wall. And, as time has a way of coming ’round, the Theater Board finally saw the means possible to take advantage of the city's Redevelopment Program in repainting the outside of the Theater which included Discovery, Lindsay’s first mural. The funding was basically through private contributions from local citizens and local businesses. Whew! Over the span of 9 years, the Mural Committee, although in “slo-mo” never lost the fever. Actually, the fever was greatly helped by our city’s unemployment rate lowering to an unheard-of 9% while the rate in Tulare County is 18%. (Unemployment rates hit a high of 57% following the freeze. Fever is difficult in that climate.)
Well, as our former eloquent Mayor Valeriano Saucedo stated in one of his Lindsay Gazette Opinion columns, “The real word on the street is that the Community Theater and the mural are a source of pride and beauty.” And, it’s bringing pride and beauty to the community that is the mission of the Lindsay Mural Committee.
Meetings
The Committee meets monthly to discuss downtown renovation locations and projects. They also discuss concepts and artists. Current discussions center around funding. Funding is always an issue when fine art is involved. Ah, someday, we’ll say fine art and Lindsay in the same sentence and folks here won’t even blink an eye.
Renovation of the downtown as a service and retail center was one of the Mayor’s Economic Development Task Force goals. Everyone knows pretty pictures don’t make a vital downtown full of commerce and activity. However, it is the icing on the cake that is evolving as Lindsay progresses toward its future business and job expansions.
A New Name
In the spring of 2006 the Mural Committee decided its name needed to encompass a larger segment of the vision of Lindsay to come. So now we are the Lindsay Mural & Public Art Society.