Althouse: "It is my high priority to find a new venue —and bring the Surfing Madonna and her important message of 'Save The Ocean' — back into public view in our community as soon as possible."

June 21, 2011

"It is my high priority to find a new venue —and bring the Surfing Madonna and her important message of 'Save The Ocean' — back into public view in our community as soon as possible."

The unauthorized mosaic is "uniting the Latino community, surfers, ocean-lovers, environmentalists, and promoting ocean awareness in a way that's playful."

29 comments:

edutcher said...: How do you say "whitebread" in Spanish?

Pano Blanco?

You don't have to be Catholic and you don't have to be Hispanic to know this was a really bad idea.

(the surf shoes on Guadelupe should have been the tipoff); 6/21/11, 5:51 PM
Geoff Matthews said...: Shouldn't this have a religion tag?; 6/21/11, 6:06 PM
madAsHell said...: "It's just unbelievably touching to me. It makes me cry, frankly. I get choked up because it's so overwhelming," said Patterson

I dunno....W(ho)TF says something like that?!?!; 6/21/11, 6:07 PM
coketown said...: There's something for everyone in this work. Latinos love the flat dimensions and gaudy colors (are shower curtain prints available?!). Surfers are flattered that maybe the Virgin Mary would pick up surfing if she were around today. Environmentalists love the irreverent use of Catholic iconography relegated to eco-friendly propaganda. And I like that this Patterson tool was fined $500.; 6/21/11, 6:19 PM
Carol_Herman said...: CRAP. It's like a Nike tee-shirt. Without the snuggle.; 6/21/11, 6:26 PM
SteveR said...: The phrase "Latino community" is pure B.S. It implies something that doesn't exist. What does a black Brazilian who speaks Portuguese have in common with someone from northern New Mexico whose family has lived in that area for 250 years and speaks New Mexican Spanish, have in common?; 6/21/11, 6:39 PM
shake-and-bake said...: I dig it.; 6/21/11, 6:48 PM
dbp said...: Patterson, a Leucadia resident, told 10News earlier this month he was touched by the community's efforts to support his artwork.

"It's just unbelievably touching to me. It makes me cry, frankly. I get choked up because it's so overwhelming," said Patterson.

One would have to have a heart of stone to not laugh at this.

--with all due apologies to Oscar Wilde; 6/21/11, 6:51 PM
Lucius said...: @Carol_Herman: Zinger! I have to give you credit on that one.

Why o why must kitsch be beloved because it's "ethnicy"?

Can't people aspire upwards towards Tintoretto or something?
Aesthetic upward mobility!

Seriously. Aesthetics ain't relative.; 6/21/11, 6:59 PM
Hagar said...: Steve R,
400+/- years.; 6/21/11, 7:43 PM
Big Mike said...: Good thing he picked Our Lady of Guadalupe to put on the surf board. If he'd depicted Mohammad on a surf board it sure wouldn't be pot that they would use to get him stoned.; 6/21/11, 7:47 PM
YoungHegelian said...: Doesn't Surfing Madonna sound like the name of a song from the 60's by the Beach Altar Boys?; 6/21/11, 8:21 PM
SteveR said...: 400+/- years.

of what?

Yeah after the bothersome Treaty of Tordesillas worked through a couple generations, there's hardly any difference between Tierra Del Fuego and Tierra Amarilla, Recife and Tijuana. One big homogenous culture represented by some dude in Encinitas.; 6/21/11, 8:23 PM
virgil xenophon said...: Coketown has the target bracketed and fires for effect...thread winner!; 6/21/11, 8:24 PM
Known Unknown said...: Art imitates fake news.; 6/21/11, 9:04 PM
mythusmage said...: People, when a local media outlet refers to a group, such as the latino community, they are referring to the local group. In this case, the local latino community.

WV: catiness

Describes certain posters to this thread.; 6/21/11, 10:53 PM
Penny said...: OK, so an "artistic" lawbreaker who touched a cultural and religious cord in his community is willing to pay a reasonable financial penalty for his crime and will be given a second chance to do it right next time.

Personally hate the art, but hey, I'm a sucker for a story with a happy ending.; 6/21/11, 11:56 PM
Banshee said...: This is ridiculous. If somebody wants to go to the trouble of covering a surface with something reasonably aesthetic at their own expense, the city should have just pretended they couldn't see it and turned a deaf ear to complaints.; 6/22/11, 7:09 AM
Freeman Hunt said...: Here in Chickentown, USA, I was going to put up a mural depicting Our Lady of Guadalupe riding a chicken. It would unite our Latino community, business interests, and buy local food activists while promoting respect for fowl in a whimsical way. No one else liked the idea though, so I can only assume that we're a less progressive community.; 6/22/11, 7:15 AM
Hagar said...: Steve R,

First Spanish settlement in New Mexico at Mission San Gabriel in 1598.

2011 - 1598 = 413 years.

Provincial capital of Nuevo Mexico moved to Santa Fe in 1608.; 6/22/11, 7:47 AM
Hagar said...: and Nuevo Mexico then and for the next 200 years was basically everything west of the Mississippi and south of Canada.; 6/22/11, 7:49 AM
SteveR said...: So how does that define a "Latino commuinity"?

I've lived in NM for 50 years, the term latino is an artificial construct.

How does the Vigin Mary on a surfboard unite the shopowner in Mora and the farmworker in the Central Valley.; 6/22/11, 8:22 AM
Hagar said...: Same reasoning that makes Barack Obama, whose father was a Luo from Kenya, on the east coast of Africa, a representative of the American "Black community."; 6/22/11, 8:37 AM
Sofa King said...: I say let the neighborhood vote on whether or not to keep it.; 6/22/11, 8:41 AM
32.and.Stewart said...: "If he'd depicted Mohammad on a surf board it sure wouldn't be pot that they would use to get him stoned.".....

Great line Big Mike; 6/22/11, 8:57 AM
32.and.Stewart said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 6/22/11, 8:58 AM
Hagar said...: You need a reason to convince people to vote Democrat when they have no idea what Democrat policies are, or much care, or even despite being actively opposed.; 6/22/11, 9:54 AM
Methadras said...: It's a cool mural and that's about it. I'm not one to factor into whether the city of encinitas considers this graffiti, but if you know encinitas, it's basically a sleepy beach town with a lot of ex-hippies living in it. There is a famous stretch of beach there called Swami's after the Self Realization Fellowship Retreat that sits above it. It's basically a NewAge Temple. Most of encinitas covers the stretch of the 101 and there are bits of graffiti here and there that the city leaves alone.

I think the fact that this guy basically bolted it to a wall of a freeway underpass without a permit is what has caused him the grief, because the city was going to basically rip it off and destroy it.; 6/22/11, 2:24 PM
Pauly Ester said...: Encinitas is just about ground zero for SWPL* in San Diego.

The only hispanics in town are the gardeners, restaurant workers and other employees who can't afford to live there.

I've seen the mosaic and it's crap. The perspective is flat and the proportions are wrong. It is to mosaics what the Cardiff Kook is to surfing sculpture.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardiff_Kook**

*Stuff White People Like

**Cardiff is just down the road from Encinitas.; 6/22/11, 4:55 PM