By Leila Nunez
The celebrated wall art event returned to Long Beach with 10 female artists to share their unique artwork with the community this past week.
Throughout the week of Aug. 29, artists were spread across the city, carefully crafting their murals to give back to the community of Long Beach.
“This year, we really gave back to a lot of community oriented spaces. We’re doing three libraries, community gardens, the boys and girls club. And so, it’s really important work and we really sort of have been seeing the impact that art has on communities,” said founder Jasper Wong.
Sneha Shrestha, professionally known as IMAGINE, is a Nepali artist who spoke at the Artist Talk hosted by the festival on Sept. 2. She described her art style as a reflection of her culture as she incorporates her native language and Sanskrit inscriptions into her creations. IMAGINE’s wall is just above a ghost kitchen and shared kitchen space in Long Beach. When it came down to inspiration, she drew from something close to her heart.
IMAGINE shares her story as an artist at the Artist Talk hosted on Friday, Sept. 2. Photo credit: Leila Nunez
IMAGINE shares her culture with Long Beach through her love of food, basing her wall color off of the traditional south Asian spice turmeric. Photo credit: Leila Nunez
“I thought: what is sort of the heart of cooking for me and what I learned from my mom? And so turmeric is the base spice for most south Asian cooking,” she said. “So I wanted to make that the color of the wall and then I thought of one of my favorite dishes, it’s called Dahl. And so on the wall, I wrote the ingredients of Dahl. Kind of sharing part of my food and I imagine that’s what people will do in the kitchen as well.”
Written in Nepali, IMAGINE paints the recipe of her favorite meal from back home. The mural is located at at 456 Elm Ave. Photo credit: Leila Nunez
The artists were out in the city nearly all day, working towards completing their murals by the end of the week. Under the sun, it could get challenging as described by Long Beach artist Mara Bubblegum, also known as Megan Boterenbrood.
“Yesterday, I got home and slept from 6:30 [p.m.] to this morning because I was just so tired, especially because of the sun. We just got this umbrella so its just been [trees] blocking us since Monday.”
A painter from Long Beach, Mara Bubblegum is also working on her tattoo apprenticeship. Photo credit: Leila Nunez
Mara Bubblegum’s artwork is outside of an animal hospital in Long Beach. Her mural, featuring an illustration of a cat and dog, also incorporates personal designs from her tattoo flash.
The flowers around the animals are designs from Mara Bubblegum’s tattoo flash. Her mural is located at 900 Pine Ave. Photo credit: Leila Nunez
When it came to giving back to the community, artist Michelle Ruby better known as Mr. B Baby brought a different perspective.
“A lot of murals aren’t geared specifically towards children, especially Latino children,” she said. “And so it’s something I really wanted to provide.”
Mr. B Baby (Michelle Ruby) speaks about her career as a female artist and her influences from Latino culture. Photo credit: Leila Nunez
Mr. B Baby is an artist from San Diego who also spoke at the Artist Talk. Her character “Chucho,” a giant piñata, has been the focus of her artwork since her career started. In her mural for Long Beach Walls, Chucho is seen crying as he is being taken down by the “Marias,” characters inspired by a Mexican ragdoll, for being too big for the town.
“It’s a Latino twist on Gulliver’s travels. In my work, I’ve been touching a lot on emotion. I want to create a book, an alphabet book for children, and touch on anxiety, depression, things that are a little bit taboo to talk about but I feel like we all feel them and so I feel like they should be celebrated,” she said. “I know it’s like a sad scene but I just feel like it’s so relatable.”
The brightly painted mural can be located at 245 E 3rd Street. Photo credit: Leila Nunez
Formerly known as Pow! Wow! Long Beach, the street art event has been something Long Beach citizens can look forward to for several years. It transforms the city into a melting pot of cultures and creativity. “We’ve been doing this festival for about 8 years,” Wong said. “It’s really a testament to these people, that even through the pandemic, and through all these years, that they’ve pushed to keep this project alive.”
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