Interview: Marela Zacarías and the making of Columbia Heights Community mural
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In 2001, at the age of 21, Marela Zacarías came to Washington, D.C., to start her career as an artist. Working with the Latin American Youth Center, where she received an artist in residency, she made a much-loved mural that came to be known in the community as La Casa Mural. It’s real name, however, was the Columbia Heights Community Mural, a monumental piece of street art on the side of La Casa homeless shelter.
At the time, it overlooked a farmers’ market that had been established in a vacant lot just outside of what is the Columbia Heights subway station today. The mural’s vibrant colors and familiar scenes of Latino Columbia Heights of those days became a source of community pride for years, before it was destroyed as part of the redevelopment of La Casa building.
Nearly two decades later, the Mexican-born painter and sculptor has a thriving international career dividing her time between the art worlds of New York City, Seattle and Mexico City. These days she’s known for her “three-dimensional paintings,” a hybrid between sculpture and painting. Although her artistic style has changed since her days painting murals with the Latin American Youth Center, she says she still believes in incorporating social and historical themes to her art pieces.
We talked to Zacarías about what mural painting in Columbia Heights was like back in the early 2000s and how her time in the District helped launch her artistic career.
What was it like creating the Columbia Heights Community Mural?
This was an epic mural—gigantic. I developed the themes with the group of Salvadoran youth so the mural was about everything possible going on in their community: from undocumented immigration met by la migra at the border, maquiladoras, police repression, inter-racial relationships, teenage pregnancy, to all the possible historical leaders from Latin American and American struggles like Martin Luther King, Marcos, Harriet Tubman among others.
The lot had been empty for many years and that is where the market would take place. I worked with about 8 students (from LAYC) and then we had about 100 volunteers during the program who helped us. Including all the men in recovery at La Casa. They were the hardest workers and their names and portraits were part of the mural.
The mural ended with a hopeful vision of the future where man helped one another to “get up” and thrive. This image was portrayed by one of the men in recovery being helped up by another man. One of the volunteer men, living in recovery at La Casa, painted himself and was so proud of it.
The opening of the mural was a huge community celebration at the farmers Market with African drummers and dancers performing and a ceremony were we recognized everyone who participate. There was a big spread on the Washington Post about it. My work continues to be site-specific and relates to the struggles or history of the place but the outcome is more abstract.
What inspired you to become an artist?
I’ve always thought of myself as an artist, ever since I was little. I was enrolled in after-school art classes at my request from a very early age and would invite our neighbors to visit “my studio” (a corner in my room) since I was 6-years-old.
I applied to college with an art portfolio and enrolled in art classes as soon as I got to Kenyon College. During my time in college, I did a lot of research on mural painting as a tool for social change. As soon as I graduated, I moved to D.C. and started painting murals and participating in art shows.
Becoming an artist came to me as an instinct; an understanding of who I was, rather coming from an outside source or inspiration.
What brought you to D.C. to start your career?
I was an International student and my mother’s brother and his family live in D.C. So D.C. was always home away from home to me, where I spent my holidays. It felt like the right place to move to after college.
The (Columbia Heights) mural was painted in the summer of 2001. I had just graduated from Kenyon College the summer before and had moved to D.C. to start being a mural painter. While I was painting this mural I was invited to be an artist in residence for the Corcoran School of Art in an artist fellowship through which I painted another mural inside of the Latin American Youth Center. I don’t know if that mural still exists.
My boyfriend, at the time (also a Kenyon graduate), lived in D.C. as well, which made my decision to move there easier. Once in D.C., I found that doors started to open immediately for me to paint murals. In addition, the summer I moved there I met an art advisor who organized my first solo show in D.C. and sold my first oil paintings. All of this early support and positive reception to my work allowed me to see my future as an artist as a real possibility.
This was my first professional work as a muralist. I would paint 30 public murals after this in the US, Mexico and Guatemala before moving to New York in 2009 to do my Masters in Fine Art at Hunter College. That led me to change my practice into 3 dimensional abstract sculptural murals.
How has your work evolved since your time in Washington?
I’m not totally opposed to painting more murals but my style has changed. I was asked to re-paint a mural in Alexandria, Vir., that I painted 10 years ago. I will do that this coming September.
But more than changed, I would say my artistic style has grown and developed into what it is now. There is a very clear connection between the work I make now to what I made then, but I’ve been developing my artistic voice for almost 20 years now. I have found a unique way to express some of the same themes I’ve always been interested in: community, site-specificity, history and of course painting. The work I make now includes sculpture and abstract painting but the spirit, in essence, remains the same.
—Analucia Franco
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