Watsonville Brillante is the 12,500 square foot project that took 5 years to complete. Kathleen started the non-profit organization Community Arts & Empowerment to fund the project and to create the Muzzio Mosaic Arts Center where Kathleen teaches and mentors the youth of the community in the art of mosaics.
The Flower Grower is fourth of four anchor images translated into mosaics from woodblock prints by the artist Juan Fuentes. This section took six moths to complete and was installed by Kathleen and a crew from Rinaldi Tile and Marble.
Here is a quote about this image from Juan Fuentes:
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.
