Mural Conservancy of Los Angeles

I was born in a place now known as Watts, at 85th and Central. My mother was a single parent and we lived in a little house, it was a duplex in South Central in the Watts area. At the time, it was right after the war, 1946 I was born, and right after the war, Watts was actually filled with Turnip fields and chicken farms and a kind of vibrant African American Latino community. You could walk down to the corner and you could pick the chicken that they would ring the neck of and then you would cook it. Or you would, as my cousins did with me when I was very small, small enough to fly between the hands of two of my bigger cousins, we would run through the turnip fields and steel turnips. Heaven knows what for because they tasted so terrible. I was always very disappointed when we went to steel turnips and they were really hot and they burned your mouth. I was raised with my grandmother, Francisca, who took care of me when my mother worked at the Good Year tire factory, and I lived with my grandmother and my aunt Rita, who was and still is a wonderful ranchera singer.

Painting as part of the Olympic Arts Festival, that was a huge honor and really an exciting time because the Olympics were coming to L.A. and ten artists were selected to paint murals on the freeways. So that was great. The amount of attention the Olympics received with not only local press, but international press, was significant. We had lots of interviews and photo shoots. I remember an interview on the freeway with a Japanese film crew and then there was a German film crew and then people were just walking down the freeway. I remember some people were walking down the freeway and I told them, ‘don’t do that! You shouldn’t be walking on the freeway!’

Carlos Callejo is a multifaceted artist and muralist. Originally from El Paso, Texas, Carlos moved to Los Angeles at the age of seven where he stayed during his high school and college years. He has painted over one hundred murals throughout the United States and abroad. His murals depict the Chicano experience in the barrios of the United States, and historic events that have shaped our world.

For those of you unable to visit the unveiling ceremony of Organic Stimulus this past Sunday March 11th, here is audio of one of the speakers, Bill Lasarow, the President of the Mural Conservancy. Listen to what he thinks the changing power mural art has for Los Angeles.