Lynell George got the Sunday Calendar cover with a feature on Vincent Valdez and the making of "El Chavez Ravine," a redone 1953 Good Humor ice cream truck he painted with a visual narrative about the razing of the communities of Chavez Ravine, eventually making way for the construction of Dodger Stadium. It was a commission for musician Ry Cooder to coincide with his 2005 album "Chavez Ravine," but the intensity of the project was more than anyone had bargained for:
The evolution of the neighborhood, from 1949 to present day, would unspool along the panels of the truck. It seemed straightforward enough, Valdez says. "I told Ry six, eight months tops."
Now, nearly two years later, the truck still sits. Lurks really. And though Valdez says that he -- as of just a few weeks ago, "at 12:57 a.m., Sunday, Aug. 5th" to be exact -- is finally finished, the truck sits in his studio's center space; his few personal belongings remain pushed to the margins where he lives: a crate of LPs, a turntable, a laptop, a trumpet case and a few scattered books -- mostly photography and history.
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"Some mornings, I would walk down these stairs and I couldn't look at the thing. You know those stereotypical stories of the crazed, dramatic artists who are just a little bit nutty? Well, some of those are true," he says. "I was locked up here for hours. . . always just me in here with the truck. And I would find myself talking to this thing. I'd come down the stairs and I'd grunt at it. I would literally say, 'I just don't want to see you right now.'
"I'd turn my back to it. It was like a partner. It was really wacky when you step outside and realize, 'Am I talking to this thing?' But worse, he admits, would be the imagined answer, "when even the grill opens up and says, 'Finish me. Finish me.' "
Cooder got the legendary Dukes Car Club to construct the truck for him, and got in touch with Valdez through D.F.-L.A. artist Ruben Ortiz Torres. The rest of the story is here, and it gets into some of the political overtones to the project, as Valdez notes: "It's an ongoing story. It happens to all of us, whatever you want to call it -- urban renewal, gentrification. It affects me, it affects all of us."
* The truck goes on view at the Peterson Automotive Museum in late October. Saturday night was the opening of Valdez's solo show at Western Project. A fun night, Cooder showed up and played with a friend of Valdez's with an accordian. On a visit a few weeks ago to Valdez's studio to see the finished truck, he asked if he could take a few pictures of me for some paintings, two of which are in the Western Project show. It was of course a huge honor and thrill to pose for him.
* Photo above by LAT photographer Genaro Molina, who did an multimedia feature to go with the story.