CityScape: ‘Greenmeme’ artists creating public art for Carlsbad’s historic barrio

Los Angeles artists Brian Howe and Freyja Bardell, whose experience ranges from public art to music videos and film, were selected last year to create a new public art piece for the Chestnut Avenue underpass along Interstate 5 in Carlsbad. The goal is to energize the space and capture the spirit of the surrounding Barrio community. The artists’ Greenmeme partnership will present initial ideas this fall.

Their commission has the potential to transform a dark concrete tunnel in the neighborhood where Carlsbad began more than 100 years ago, when immigrants fleeing the Mexican revolution arrived, worked the fields, and built homes and businesses.

Today, the blocks surrounding the underpass and the popular Lola’s deli, at Roosevelt Street and Walnut Avenue, in the heart of the barrio, are rapidly gentrifying. Lola’s Market was opened in 1943 by Reyes and Delores “Lola” Jauregui. Today, properties including Lola’s are owned by the third generation, with a Barrio Museum in the original market space and Lola’s deli just across Walnut. Amid a bunch of newer buildings, some okay, some just plain horrible, Lola’s is the most obvious remaining symbol of the Barrio’s rich history.

When it comes to public art in the barrio, the mural on the side of Circle K market on Roosevelt Street, painted by students in 1984, is especially beloved. Like the work of Diego Rivera and other Mexican muralists, it captures identity and history in bold, colorful imagery.

Meanwhile, at the intersection of Pine Avenue and Harding Street, not far from Lola’s, artist Mario Torero, best known for his activist murals in San Diego’s Barrio Logan, is making a public art piece for a traffic roundabout. With his experiences in that barrio, he’s a logical choice here. His new project will evolve along the same timeline as Greenmeme’s, with the two pieces only a few blocks apart.

Greenmeme doesn’t come from Mexican roots, they don’t do murals, and they face a tremendous challenge: harnessing their creative powers to produce a contemporary piece that represents the neighborhood and revamps an underpass into a landmark gateway to the barrio.

Their latest piece, completed last year, is “Community Canyon,” in Wilmington next to the Port of Los Angeles. Inspired by fossilized rocks found along beaches, the sculpture consists of two huge hunks of Carnelian Granite, with 3D faces of community members cut into them. Separated by a gravel path, these two banks of giant faces engage in a dialog with each other and with visitors.

While “Canyon” validates Greenmeme’s ability to capture community spirit, as far as Carlsbad is concerned, a more relevant example of Greenmeme’s public art is “The Blue Tree” at California State University San Bernardino. After a large mature pine tree was removed to make way for an open-air transit station, Greenmeme’s piece within the new station includes photos of the tree printed onto large glass “windshields,” assembled into a long, translucent wall.

Carlsbad’s traffic thoroughfare presents its own challenges: It is covered, dark, and has minimal space for adding public art. As Greenmeme did in San Bernardino, Howe wants to capture some sense of the movement of vehicles and pedestrians.

He said Greenmeme is looking at curved retaining walls that wrap the ends of the underpass as potential extensions of the project. These would be energizing additions to a “canvas” currently consisting of street, bike lanes, sidewalks, retaining walls, and stone embankments. The tunnel’s vaulted concrete ceiling might also become a part of the art. Caltrans plans to add soffet lighting, but Greenmeme could work with them to make the ceiling more than just light fixtures on concrete.

What do barrio residents imagine here? Greenmeme conducted workshops within the community to find out. These sessions produced 300 completed questionnaires along with children’s sketches. Greenmeme is compiling them, contemplating how to manifest them in public art.

“We’re trying to figure out the materials and the method,” Howe said. “We have wrap-around entry walls on each end that could have stand-alone art work. There’s also an idea that there could be some sort of treatment throughout the underpass, but we can’t go too deep because it has a sidewalk. I’m not sure what we’ll do yet.”

Bardell grew up in the United Kingdom, learned Spanish, and spent time teaching English in South and Central America. Her work as an artist has included scenic design for films such as “Magazine Dreams,” shown at Sundance, now streaming, as well as for videos by David Bowie (for the title song on his final album “Dark Star”) and Kendrick Lamar (last year’s “Not Like Us”).

Howe has an architecture degree from the Southern California Institute of Architecture, and he has a passion for fabrication, creating various environments, and for music.

Howe and Bardell have homes in Los Angeles and Lone Pine, east of the Sierra, where Greenmeme is setting up an arts club and artists’ residency program. Howe is working with other artists, local politicians, and community members to create an Eastern Sierra Arts Festival, to debut next year.

Greenmeme’s underpass and Torero’s roundabout will undoubtedly transform the Barrio in fascinating ways. The artists have different creative processes and work in different media, but they share a commitment to community engagement.

Decades after the Chicano Park murals were made by Torero and other artists, they endure as a representation of the community’s past, its identity, and its dreams, amid gentrification that has driven out many original residents.

Torero wonders how Greenmeme, outsiders to the barrio, will capture its culture, history, and spirit. Due for completion in 2027, Greenmeme’s underpass public art is bound to bring national attention, but touching the hearts of the neighborhood’s residents, making them feel a connection to the work, will be as complicated as figuring out what goes into Lola’s mui bueno tamales. Together, through their public art, maybe Torero and Greenmeme will create some flavorful new recipes for the barrio.

Dirk Sutro has written extensively about architecture and design in Southern California and is the author of architectural guidebooks to San Diego and UC San Diego. His column appears monthly in Times of San Diego, and he also writes about houses for San Diego Magazine.