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The Watsonville Earthquake Monument
Dedicated to Elida Ledesma Ortega, quake victim
Sponsored by the Santa Cruz County Farm Bureau and Agri-Culture. Assistance
provided by the Pajaro Valley Arts Council, the League of United Latin
American Citizens, and Watsonville Parks and Recreation Department. Thanks
to the many private donors who offset the costs of construction, to Lee
Cozzens for conceptual renderings, to Florentin Anghelescu for consultation,
and to Peter Nurske for researching the 2002 changes to the Monument
and providing many of the following photos.
Located in front of Watsonville City Hall, the Earthquake Monument was
unveiled on the 2 nd anniversary of the Loma Prieta Earthquake, October
17, 1991 as part of city-wide celebrations of the their recovery from
the disaster. Watsonville was the closest town to the epicenter of the
7.1 magnitude quake and suffered the loss of many buildings and one life.
The Monument was a joint artistic effort by me and landscaper David Cohen
of Waterstone Specialties of Santa Cruz. David designed a 15'x15'x7' high
brick fountain with water, symbolizing revitalization, flowing through
fissures in a brick structure and recirculating from a pool below. Many
of the bricks David used to build this structure were salvaged from buildings
damaged or destroyed in the quake and gathered together by Santa Cruz county
youth. Given general themes suggested by David and the Watsonville community,
I designed and painted the twelve tiled panels (125 square feet) set into
this structure.
The people I depicted in the eight “Windows to ordinary life in Watsonville” are
all inventions, save that of Elida Ledesma Ortega, (I painted her composing
a shopping list.). The Monument is dedicated to Ortega, a former immigrant
farm worker who later became a nurse's assistant and office clerk. She was
the only Watsonville citizen to die in the quake. She was forty-four when
she lost her life while saving her grandson from a collapsing bakery a few
blocks from the future Monument.
Four fifteen foot long tiled panels surround the base of the Monument.
I call them, “Alto!' “Shelter” “Renewal” and “Lost Treasures, New Journeys”.
“Alto!” depicts the hours directly following the quake. The sun and
moon on either side of the panel symbolize a moment of great change,
and of opposites coming together.
“Shelter” shows a rainy night after the quake in which volunteers bring
supplies to a diverse group of people in a tent city such as that which
sprung up in Watsonville's Callaghan Park. Their tablecloth is made up
of patterns from the curtains of the windows in the upper panels of the
structure.
In “Renewal”, Watsonville people of all ages and backgrounds are depicted
rebuilding their town under the hopeful arc of a rainbow.
In “Lost treasures, New Journeys”, I memorialize five Watsonville buildings
permanently damaged or destroyed in the quake, including Saint Patrick's
Church, The Oddfellows building, the house on the corner of Jefferson and
5 th streets, the Ford Building and Ftoesser's block of buildings.
In 2002, the Watsonville City Council removed the upper portion of the
Monument, apparently out of safety concerns (the fountain had been turned
off when children were found to be playing in it). The city replaced the
fountain portion of the monument with plantings and nearby park benches.
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