New San Pedro mural captures neigborhood essence
Brenda Gonzales, known for face and body painting, is set to go big
A San Pedro artist, bestknown for her more fleeting works of art, now has a new permanent fixture for residents to stop and take a gander at.
Brenda Gonzales, who specializes in face and body painting, spent the last month erecting a mural outside San Pedro’s iconic Lighthouse Café and Point Fermin Market that pays homage to the family that owns the lot — and captures the essence of San Pedro.
Cheryl LaPinta Allred and her two sisters, Diana Hay and Cynthia Guzman, commissioned
Gonzales to create a mural that included three flowers, each representing a sister, and five palm trees that represent their extended family members. The centerpiece features a blackand-white illustration of the Point Fermin Lighthouse.
“We told (Gonzales) what we were looking for and let her roll with it,” Allred said. “She got everything we wanted.”
But Gonzales, a longtime San Pedro resident, wanted to include more details about what makes her community special. Outside the Lighthouse Café — which has been undergoing its own renovations — Gonzales depicted a windsurfer whose orange and blue colors match the breakfast spot’s new interior design. The entrance to the market, 508 W 39th St., also features a flurry of colorful sailboats and palm trees.
Gonzales has had practice with murals before. Taper Avenue Elementary School in San Pedro is home to two others she has created.
For this project, however, Gonzales took a more difficult approach to capture her vision, using water-based colors on the building’s stucco surface. This
posed challenges, Gonzales said, because stucco’s unfinished, rough appearance made it hard to capture the smooth, vibrant colors in her waves, flowers and palm trees.
One San Pedro resident, Kathy Murry, said she was thrilled to see the lot’s new
mural, and urged the city of Los Angeles to create more artistic spaces in San Pedro and highlight the few murals historic port town already has to offer.
“It’s wonderful to see the city receive some love,” Murry said. “San Pedro is such an amazing place that deserves to have more murals created.”
“(Gonzales’) mural is so beautiful and such a great addition to our city,” she
added.
Gonzales completed the mural on Friday, though the artist said she wishes she could keep working on it.
“The response already has been so wonderful,” she said. “Neighbors have come by offering to help, offering food. It just really makes me love what I do.
“I hope they bring me back to paint over the other side of the building too,” she added.