Juan Fuentes: Anchor Artist
Watsonville memories
Watsonville will always be my first home. I grew up there and many wonderful memories of my family and friends are rooted there. It was because of my close friends at Watsonville High School that I had the opportunity to attend San Francisco State University and in the process I discovered my love for art.
My family migrated from Texas to New Mexico and then California in the early 1950’s. Both parents were born in Texas our grandparents were born in Mexico. I was born in Artesia, New Mexico in 1950.
We lived in the farm labor camps of Monterey County; as a result I attended four elementary schools before our family settled in the Las Lomas area, now referred to as Royal Oaks Community. I have four sisters and six brothers. Two sisters and two brothers still reside in Watsonville. One sister lives in Castroville. I have many nieces and nephews that continue to live in Watsonville. My sister in law, Martha has worked in the main library for many years. My sisters Delfina and Emily worked in the old pajama factory and my sister Margaret worked in the Green Giant cannery for many years.
My parents are buried in Watsonville along with nephews and nieces.
As a family we harvested, apples, berries, strawberries, radishes, cucumbers, and prunes along with onions in Gilroy. My earliest memories as a child are from the many labor camps in which we lived. There were so many children and we all played together in the camp till dark, after spending our day in the fields with the family. Our older siblings worked with our parents during harvest time, I have so many fun memories of this period in my life.
I got my first job working at the Western Auto Store on Main Street while attending Watsonville High School. I worked after school, sometimes on Saturday’s. This opportunity took me out of the fields and showed me that there were other opportunities for me to explore. While there I learned how to assemble bikes and put new tires on cars, so grateful for this opportunity.
I love the ocean and it was the one place that we could afford to go and enjoy as a family on Sundays. My father taught us how to fish and we spent many days hanging out at Sunset Beach and Moss Landing. Fishing was fun, but it also provided us with a needed meal.
There were also many hardships that we endured as a family, my father died when I was in the eighth grade, leaving my mother to raise us alone. We managed the best we could with help from give away food banks and welfare. He died of respiratory problems related to asthma. I believe, that it may have been caused by exposure to the sprayed chemical DDT. When we lived in the farm labor camps, the women and children were sent home from the fields, but the men continued to irrigate the fields while crop dusters sprayed the strawberry fields. The only protection for my father was a bandana around his face to protect him from the chemicals being sprayed. I remember the many times that my older brother Louis and I drove him to the hospital in Salinas in the middle of the night after one of his many attacks. My parents are buried in Watsonville along with my sister Clara and several nieces and nephews.
The Hermanita image was originally done in 2005 as a linocut. The image was based on a photo I saw in a travel magazine while visiting friends in Albuquerque, New Mexico. I made a quick sketch and later I created the Hermanita print based on that small sketch as a relief print.
Hermanita was done as a tribute to Native women, but when I titled it Hemanita, (little sister) I was thinking of my sisters, even though they are older than me. Hermanita represents beauty and strength. The resilience of native cultures, but as a mosaic she now represents the first peoples of Watsonville, which were the Ohlone and the many indigenous women that come from Mexico to toil in the fields.
Japanese community connection
My sister Delfina and my brother in law Sam Ruiz worked for a Mr. Yoshida on his strawberry farm in the late 1960’s. Delfina was also close friends with a Wilson who was Japanese and worked in a flower nursery near her home in Las Lomas.
My earliest connection to the Japanese community was in elementary school with Japanese students. A few Japanese families lived in our community. We got to know each other then we all went our separate ways after high school, but I’m still in touch with my Hall Elementary school classmate, Judith.
In 2009 I traveled to Portland, Oregon and took a class in moka hunga, that was offered by Mclains art store and taught the Japanese cutting and printing technique for doing woodcuts and printing with water based inks. Japanese woodcuts have influenced artists including myself; their work is unprecedented in the world of relief prints.
Mayan Warrior, is a woodcut. The main image represents a young man picking strawberries. That young man could have been me, but also many others. I wanted to represent the present and the past, so I added the Mayan deity on top and it holds onto a farmworker eagle and their struggle for workers rights led by Cesar Chavez. On the top left corner is the symbol for the four directions from New Mexico, where I was born. This represents our cultural past in Mexico and present lives in the U.S. Separating the two figures is a barbed wire, representing the border between Mexico and the U. S. My own family was divided with relatives on both sides of the border.
En el Cielo, (In the Sky) began as a linocut. I created this image during my artist residency at the Blue Mountain Center in upstate New York. My friend Francisco Dominguez sent me some photographs in collaboration. Growing up in Watsonville our family had spent times picking apples near Corralitos. En el Cielo represents someone reaching for the world. It could be anyone striving to be the best. It also shows how difficult the work is to be on a ladder in the sky in a delicate balance.
My thoughts on the project
First I want to say that it is an honor to have my work represented where I grew up and my family and many friends still reside. The community in Watsonville deserves to see themselves reflected in this majestic manner and acknowledged for their contributions in agriculture.
Kathleen Crocetti is an amazing artist her vision for this project is becoming a reality. When the first mural went up I was totally amazed at the large number of students and adults that participated at the Muzzio Park Community Center. Now they can say that they are connected to this amazing project, “Watsonville Brillante” in this process I cannot say that these images belong to me alone. They now belong to a community of participant artists and are truly a collective collaboration.
The other amazing connection is that my sister Delfina’s grandson and my grand nephew, Sammy Ruiz is in charge of installing the mosaics through his job with Rinaldi Tile & Marble Company who is doing so much to ensure that this project is completed. Our family in Watsonville is so proud and I feel that after all the struggles that my family has endured over the years they are being rewarded with this beautiful community project that I was asked to participate in.
Muchas Gracias, comunidad de Watsonville,
Juan R. Fuentes