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MADONNA RISES ON REMOTE HILL | Tijuana arch honors Mexico's patron saint:[1,3
Edition]
Sandra Dibble. The San Diego Union - Tribune. San Diego, Calif.: Aug 18, 2003.
pg. B.1
Full Text (1315 words)
Copyright SAN DIEGO UNION TRIBUNE PUBLISHING COMPANY Aug 18, 2003
TIJUANA -- A solitary, wind-swept hillside seems an unlikely setting for a
towering artwork that represents so much to so many. Yet on this spot
overlooking the dirt roads and small shacks at Tijuana's far eastern reaches, a
San Diego artist has completed her most ambitious work: a 24-foot arch in the
shape of the Virgin of Guadalupe.
The silhouette is unmistakable: She is the Mexican Madonna, her figure traced by
the interior of the arch, her deep turquoise robe studded with stars and framed
with a corona of bright yellow rays. At the base is a rose; on top, a flaming
heart.
Judith Nicolaidis, 58, a sculptor and ceramic artist, has been coming for 15
months to this remote corner of Tijuana, where migrants from across Mexico
settle with little more than dreams for a new start. Nicolaidis, a longtime art
professor at Southwestern College in Chula Vista, brought her own dream, to
evoke female spirituality in a way that transcends cultural differences.
What has emerged is this metal-and-concrete arch covered with thousands of
pieces of ceramic tile, some of them shaped like fish, hearts, notes of music,
dots of light. Surrounding it are benches studded with purple cookie-cutter
shapes of camels, giraffes, elephants.
From across the small valley, it is hard to distinguish anything but an oddly
shaped arch rising by a steep road on an undeveloped piece of land. But up
close, the virgin is a formidable presence, covered with color, a frame for the
rapidly changing landscape before her.
The idea might seem a bit mad: Coming out this far, building a piece so big, on
a spot so far off the beaten path. But Nicolaidis said this is where the
opportunity came up.
Tijuana "offers a lot of freedom to be creative," Nicolaidis said.
She is not the first to explore the city's possibilities. A few miles away, on a
hilltop overlooking the city, a Catholic priest has erected a 75-foot fiberglass
Jesus. Across town in a shantytown near the U.S. border, Tijuana artist Armando
Munoz in 1989 built a 56-foot nude female figure called La Mona, the doll, and
is building a giant mermaid south of Rosarito Beach.
A slender woman of 5 feet 4 inches, Nicolaidis is dwarfed by the figure that has
taken over her life.
The challenges have been considerable. There is no running water. The site is
hard to reach. Vandals have tried to break off pieces from the robe.
But others say they love this depiction of Mexico's most revered female figure.
"She's pretty," said Adalberto Nunez Lopez, 14, stopping by the newly finished
artwork while flying a handmade kite.
Adalberto and his friends didn't hesitate to name their favorite part, the deep
red heart.
On a recent afternoon, Nicolaidis looked a bit like an explorer, shielding
herself from the punishing sun with wide-brimmed hat and long-sleeved shirt,
protected with blue jeans, knee pads, work boots and gloves.
"It's always kind of an adventure," she said. "You don't know what's going to
happen."
A rooster crowed, a hawk soared, and trees rustled in the hot breeze. Not far
away, a bulldozer rumbled, a man's voice called out, an ice cream vendor played
a tune as his truck lumbered past a row of wood houses.
"Paulino, por favor," Nicolaidis commanded, asking an assistant to sweep away
some loose cement beneath the freshly grouted benches.
Patron saint
The Virgin of Guadalupe is said to have appeared in a ball of light to an Indian
named Juan Diego in central Mexico in 1531. She told him she was the Virgin
Mary. She is now the patron saint of Mexico and her likeness appears almost
anywhere: on the backs of silk shirts worn by young nortenos, on the walls of
neighborhood markets, on statues hawked by vendors at the San Ysidro border
crossing. People see her shape on the barks of trees, in the ashes of fires, in
the shapes of clouds.
It was not a vision that led Nicolaidis in May 2002 to this isolated spot off
the Free Road to Tecate. But this is where she landed, through a combination of
circumstances, at the edge of Maclovio Rojas, a community that has languished
for years without running water, electricity and other services because of a
protracted land dispute.
Nicolaidis is a member of the Border Art Workshop, a San Diego- based group that
built a community arts center in Maclovio Rojas. With some students from
Southwestern, she did a smaller ceramic piece, evoking fertility, which was set
outside the Maclovio Rojas women's center.
Vandals threw rocks, breaking off parts of the statue, and she now can hardly
bear to go see it. But she was already working on the new piece and not about to
stop.
The idea for the Virgin of Guadalupe began as a 2-inch drawing and at one point
was conceived as only half its actual size. As originally envisioned, the arch
would have gone outside the women's center. |
"I gave the drawing to the community, and they said, `We really like it, but
there's a lot of people who are not Catholic,' " she said. "I never thought of
it as Catholic. To me it was female, spiritual, nurturant."
New location
So the piece was moved to a future cemetery on the edge of Maclovio Rojas, where
another Southwestern professor, Michael Schnorr, is planning a school and
sculpture garden that would draw art students from both inside and outside the
community.
A grant from the National Endowment for the Arts gave Nicolaidis $3,200 -- just
more than one-third of the cost for labor and materials. She has invested more
than $5,000 of her own money, hiring artist Armando Munoz, who has had
experience with large concrete figures, to build the frame. She paid local
laborers to work at her side.
Nicolaidis is, by her own admission, a bit New Age. To describe this piece, she
speaks of gateways and passages and the female psyche.
"That's always been an interest of mine, the transformative experiences that we
go through," she said.
Some ask why she doesn't fill in the figure, but they're missing the point. To
pass through the arch is to experience the virgin's essence.
`That space is spirit'
"You are physically in her spiritual presence," Nicolaidis said. "What's in that
space is spirit, not anything material."
Paulino Garcia Avalos, who lives nearby, happened along a few months ago looking
for work and has been with Nicolaidis ever since. As he lay pieces of tile at
the arch's base, he reminisced about visiting the Virgin of Guadalupe's shrine
outside Mexico City and suddenly feeling faint, he wasn't sure why.
Marco Antonio Cruz Franco, deported earlier this year from California, cracked
jokes and broke into song as he scrubbed loose grout: "I am a king who has lost
his crown."
Working in Mexico has taught Nicolaidis to have faith in the impossible.
"It's amazing how there's always something provided, how something works out,"
she said.
Volunteers have come from as far as Pennsylvania, as close as next door. With no
running water in the area, neighbors have shared their water supply, brought by
a hose that runs down the hillside.
Sandra Dibble: (619) 293-1716; sandra.dibble@uniontrib.com
[Illustration]
3 PICS; Caption: 1,2. Paulino Garcia Avalos (above left) and Marco Antonio Cruz
Franco mixed concrete last month for the base of Judith Nicolaidis' 24-foot-tall
Virgin of Guadalupe on a hillside in an eastern section of Tijuana. Nicolaidis,
a sculptor and ceramic artist who teaches at Southwestern College in Chula
Vista, broke up tile (below) to use on her artwork. She has invested more than
$5,000 of her own money on the artwork. 3. Paulino Garcia Avalos prepared forms
for the base of the Virgin of Guadalupe artwork at the edge of Maclovio Rojas in
eastern Tijuana. (B-4); Credit: 1,2,3. John Gibbins / Union-Tribune photos
Credit: STAFF WRITER
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction or
distribution is prohibited without permission.
People: Nicolaidis, Judith, Rojas, Maclovio, Avalos, Paulino Garca
Article types: PROFILE;
Dateline: TIJUANA
Section: LOCAL
Text Word Count 1315
Week in photos | Aug. 16-22:[BULLDOG Edition]
The San Diego Union - Tribune. San Diego, Calif.: Aug 24, 2003. pg. B.8
Full Text (235 words)
Copyright SAN DIEGO UNION TRIBUNE PUBLISHING COMPANY Aug 24, 2003
Caption only.
[Illustration]
5 PICS; Caption: 1. ART -- Paulino Garcia Avalos prepared forms for the base of
the Virgin of Guadalupe artwork at the edge of Maclovio Rojas in eastern
Tijuana. Judith Nicolaidis, 58, a sculptor and ceramic artist, is creating the
Mexican Madonna. 2. LEGEND -- Richard Pena of Bonita held up a concrete casting
of what South County lore identifies as a foot from the Proctor Valley Monster.
The casting is in the Bonita Museum. The myth of the 7-foot-tall beast has been
alive for at least half a century. 3. AVIATION -- The replica of Charles
Lindbergh's Spirit of St. Louis that sits in the San Diego Aerospace Museum's
rotunda took to the air last Saturday to celebrate the 75th anniversary of
Lindbergh Field's dedication. The replica of the historic 1927 aircraft flew
from Gillespie Field in El Cajon to Lindbergh Field and back again. 4. EVENT --
Robin Edmonds played harp during a performance with Jahsun and the Nommo
Collective at the Encanto Street Fair last Saturday. The annual fair included
performances by jazz, blues, gospel, urban and R&B artists, food and rides for
children. 5. WEATHER -- Julian resident Sarah Evans watched the clouds in an
approaching thunderstorm Wednesday after she stopped her car along Banner
Grade.; Credit: 1,4. Earnie Grafton / Union-Tribune 2. Uma Sanghvi / Union-
Tribune 3. Howard Lipin / Union-Tribune 5. Scott Linnett / Union- Tribune
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction or
distribution is prohibited without permission.
Column Name: Week in photos | Aug. 16-22
Section: LOCAL
Text Word Count 235 |