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More Lemon Park murals being restored in Fullerton

October 26, 2023

By Jessica Benda,

Contributing Writer

The restoration of two Fullerton murals is nearly complete, and now officials are scouting funding to restore more of the murals in the Lemon Park area.

“The Town I Live In” and “Brown Car” are among the most visible of the nearly 50-year-old murals, most of which are painted on a pedestrian bridge on Lemon Street north of Orangethorpe Avenue. Local artist Drew Stirdivant started restoration of those two in early August and this week was close to finishing.

Artist Drew Stirdivant works on refurbishing a mural originally painted in the late 1970’s on a pedestrian bridge near Lemon Park in Fullerton, CA. Stirdivant, who has lived near Lemon Park all his life, is restoring the murals “The Town I Live In” and “The Brown Car”. (Photo by Paul Bersebach, Orange County Register/SCNG)

A mural that was originally painted in the 1970s along the Lemon Street pedestrian bridge maybe redone in Fullerton, CA, on Friday, October 6, 2023. (Photo by Jeff Gritchen, Orange County Register/SCNG)

Painter Drew Stirdivant works to repaint a mural that was originally painted in the 1970s along the Lemon Street pedestrian bridge in Fullerton, CA, on Friday, October 6, 2023. (Photo by Jeff Gritchen, Orange County Register/SCNG)

A pedestrian bridge over S. Lemon Street displays murals in Fullerton, CA. The murals are adjacent to the east side of Lemon Park. (Photo by Paul Bersebach, Orange County Register/SCNG)

Ahmad Zahra kickstarted efforts to restore murals near Lemon Park. (File Photo by Mindy Schauer, Orange County Register/SCNG)

Artist Emigdio Higgy Vasquez, left, and his wife, Katherine Bowers, work to restore the 1994 mural originally created by his father, Emigdio Vasquez Sr., at the entrance of Lemon Park in Fullerton, August 12, 2019.
(Photo by Steven Georges, Contributing Photographer)

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Six murals date back to 1978, when teacher David Whalen and local students painted them as part of a local youth project. Renown local muralist Emigdio Vasquez Sr. added two more in the ’90s with the help of at-risk youth. The panels draw from the Mexican-American heritage that is predominate in the surrounding community.

Prior to the current restorations, the last mural to receive a touch-up was “Niños del Mundo” in 2019, restored by Emigdio “Higgy” Vasquez Jr., son of Vasquez Sr. With the latest double-mural restoration, the project is nearly at the halfway point.

The eight-mural endeavor carries a $10,000 to $20,000 price tag per mural restoration, officials estimated. Councilman Ahmad Zahra, who included attention to the murals as part of his 2018 campaign, has been spearheading recent fundraising efforts.

“After things settled down after the pandemic, there was really no funding from the city for anything like this, so I decided to raise the funds independently,” Zahra said. “We set up a special donation link and special accounts for the murals through the city, which people could donate directly into.”

Community efforts totaled $12,000 for the current restoration, including hefty donations from the Orange County Employee Association, Fullerton Firefighters Association, Fullerton Police Officers Association and a local barber shop.

But for some murals, restoration is impossible. Decades-long neglect has rendered the paint too damaged, now requiring recreations instead. This is the case with “Brown Car,” which is being recreated on a special canvas that makes it transportable in case of relocation. An outer layer will safeguard the mural from vandalism, which can be easily washed off without damaging the art’s integrity.

Stirdivant, a tattoo artist and painter of 18 years, said his connection with the murals is a close one. Not only was his wife one of the painters on “Niños del Mundo,” but he walked by them almost daily as he grew up down the street. They gave him a sense of belonging, he said.

“When I was growing up, it was like, ‘What are you doing over here? Get back to your area,’” Stirdivant said. “But those murals made me feel at home, like I wasn’t so alien, like I was accepted. It was like, hey, it’s not just me that’s here. There were people here before me.”

As for tending to the rest of the murals, the timeline primarily hinges on the funding, but Zahra said that logistics can be just as tricky. The money for the current murals was raised in summer 2022, but it took nearly a year to work out the agreements and other details.

Zahra has hopes that it won’t just be the completion of the murals that brings the community together — it will be the process.

Community involvement was already seen earlier this month, when elementary and high school students from the surrounding neighborhood came to assist with painting, bringing the project full circle with its educational origins.

“These kids are gonna grow up and say, ‘We worked on this,’” Zahra said. “I’ve met a lot of folks that are now my age who say ‘We were kids when we worked on this,’ and so now I’m hoping there’s a new generation that will be looking back someday.”

Orange County Register

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More Lemon Park murals being restored in Fullerton

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