By Elizabeth Toy
East Los Angeles College Associate Student Union has acquired former student and renowned muralist, George Yepes to direct two student art projects.
The “Milk Loves Art” campaign and the student mural project will be in progress until the end of the spring semester in 2016.
“Got Milk” is renovating its ad campaign and has selected Yepes to direct the new “Milk Loves Art” campaign. This is a statewide project which consists of 32 cow sculptures that will be allocated amongst seven cities in California. The designed cows will be auctioned and the proceeds will be donated to Ronald McDonald House for children with cancer.
Yepes will lead a team of professional artists in each city and has selected the East Los Angeles Student Art team, a group formed specially for these projects, to represent Los Angeles.
The ELASA team will begin painting the five cows this week based on Yepes’ instruction. One of the five cows will be given to the ELAC Art Department Chair Professor Linda Kallan, who will determine its design.
The Student Mural Project, funded by the Associated Student Union, will be the first mural installed at ELAC in 35 years. ASU is excited to contribute to the renovations of new architecture with a new mural, whose concept will be developed by and for the students.
“Though ELAC has an Art Department with a student-advocating Art Director Kallan, it does not offer any courses on large-scale murals, a disadvantage to current art students who aspire to be muralists,” ASU Chief Delegate Cristal Haro said, “With Yepes’ instruction, ELAC will be the first higher education institution in the nation to provide superior quality instruction painting large-scale murals,” Haro said.
A former student of Yepes’, Haro feels “the undivided attention and instruction provided by Master Yepes is so original, innovative, and passionate that students leave with a world of knowledge from his academy.”
Yepes will design both projects to give ELAC students a rare opportunity to learn from participating in two unique professional arts projects.
“Through the ‘Milk Loves Art’ project, I will teach the students how to manage and produce a large-scale professional arts project and during the ‘Mural project,’ I will teach the students how to produce a large-scale mural,” Yepes said.
Yepes founded the Academia de Arte Yepes, a free art academy in 1992 and has since been instructing free high standard based interdisciplinary fine arts master courses in painting for elementary to college students.
Yepes has taught mural-painting to over 2,000 Academia de Arte Yepes students for the past 23 years. In that time, his Academia alumni have completed more than 30 murals in Los Angeles and Chicago.
While a background in art can be helpful, ASU and Yepes encourage all students to apply.
“Currently, I have former students who are engineers, architects, technology experts, teachers, painters and muralists,” Yepes said. Yepes will review and select the participants for the mural project.
The “Milk Loves Art” campaign project has officially been created as a Community Services class. Students can sign up online through the ELAC website. The class fee is $10 and requires students to pay the ASU fee of $7. Non-art students are encouraged to participate.
The “Milk Loves Art” campaign project is currently in progress backstage in the Ingles Auditorium. Studio hours are from noon to 8 p.m. daily, including weekends until Dec. 13.
The Student Mural Project will also be officiated as a Community Service class in the spring.
The deadline for the “Milk Loves Art” campaign project has passed, but students can still apply for the Student Mural Project. To enter, students must submit two art samples by 11 p.m. on Dec. 21 to 2016haro@gmail.com.