Street art
Park in San Luis, Ariz., reopens Friday to host arts festival
SAN LUIS, Ariz. — Amistad Park, shuttered for more than two years, will open its gates for one day on Friday as the site for Art Across the Border festival, a gathering of artists and art lovers from the Yuma area and San Luis Rio Colorado, Son.
Artists will showcase paintings, ceramics, photographs, drawing and art in other mediums to the public in an exhibit where the theme is the farm labor movement headed by the late Cesar Chavez, leader of the United Farm Workers union.
The event will also feature live music and dance performances, raffles and other activities. Mexican food will also be available.
The Art in the Street event will take place from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Friday. Admission is free and open to the public.
San Luis Parks and Recreation Director Louie Galaviz said organizers of the festival are hoping to attract visitors to the shops in downtown San Luis. But he added the event is also intended as a prelude to a permanent reopening of the border city’s first park, located next to the international boundary with Mexico.
Known to many residents as “el Parque de la Amistad,” the park is located at the corner of Main and Urtuzuastegui streets, on federal land that was turned over to San Luis to be used for public recreation. Amistad Park was closed in 2014 to allow a downtown street renovation project to take place in the area and except for an event in November when it was briefly open, it has remained closed.
The festival takes place a week before the birthday of Chavez, born in the Yuma area in 1927 and who passed away in April 1993 in San Luis, Ariz.
Galaviz said organizers of the festival are continuing to recruit local artists to show work in the exhibition but said their art does not have to reflect the farmworker theme.
The festival will also tie in with this year’s celebration across the border of the 100th anniversary of the founding of San Luis Rio Colorado, today a city of more than 200,000.
Manuel Cuen, a member of the committee organizing the celebration of that city’s centennial, said artists are being sought who can submit art relating to the history of San Luis Rio Colorado.
Among those taking part in the festival are eight artists from San Luis Rio Colorado, Son., who will be creating large murals encased in wooden frames. The works, devoted to Chavez and farmworkers, will be donated to the city-operated cultural center in San Luis that is named for the late UFW leader.
Cuen said Amistad Park was picked as the venue for the festival because its location next to the international boundary helps to foster the event’s theme, that of cultural exchange between U.S. and Mexican border cities.
Three food trucks, brought from San Luis Rio Colorado, will offer the public the choice of tacos, seafood and other popular dishes from south of the border.
Amistad Park served as the only park in San Luis through the 1980s, but its use by residents dropped off when the city opened Joe Orduno Park, which included athletic fields and courts lacking at Amistad.
In December, Galaviz submitted to the San Luis City Council a master plan for remodeling and reopening Amistad Park to public use.
The council has yet to act on the plan, but until then the parks director wants to use Amistad to host special events such as the festival as way to promote its eventual reopening for full-time use by the public.
Artists wishing to exhibit their work in the festival can contact Galaviz, at (928) 341-8538 or at lgalaviz@cityofsanluis.org, for more information.