Artist M.B. Hanrahan painted a section of a giant mural at Ventura's Harbor Village. A gray whale is the project's centerpiece.
It’s also meant to be more than art. The work celebrates Ventura’s relationship with its sister city, Loreto, in Baja California Sur, Mexico.
"Loreto is Ventura's first, and only sister city. It has been for about ten years," said Carl Morehouse, who chairs the San Buenaventura Sister City Association. He helped establish the relationship with Loreto a decade ago.
"One of the things we've been developing over this period of time was the arts. They have a very artistic community. An artist from here went down a couple of years ago, met with one of their premier artists, and did a beautiful mural down there. This is our match to their match. Our mural will be a mirror to theirs."
Morehouse, a Ventura City Council member for nearly two decades, recalled how the sister-city relationship started.
"We were approached by Loreto, which is on the Sea of Cortez. They said, 'You have a five-island national park; we have a five-island national park; Father (Junípero) Serra began his work here (in Loreto). The El Camino Real starts here and runs to your city, where the last mission was founded. We said that was enough for us to have a sister city relationship"
Morehouse said student and cultural exchanges are among the top priorities in Ventura’s sister-city relationship with Loreto. It’s what led to the whale mural project in Ventura.
"In Loreto, in our sister city, I got an opportunity to paint a humpback whale working with an artist in that community," said Hanrahan. "The Sister Cities Association approached me, hoping that I could create a cultural exchange."
The artist is creating the 20-foot-long Ventura mural on a wall between the Boatyard Pub and the Coastal Cone Ice Cream Shop in Ventura Harbor Village.
"The form of our cultural exchange is to paint a gray whale," continued Hanrahan. "Inside the gray whale, we'll have various creatures that we know from our kelp forests. We have so many things in common, and one of them is whale migration."
Hanrahan wants the mural to get people thinking about the environment and raise awareness about Ventura’s sister city in Mexico.
"What I'm hoping people will take away is that they will see a painting of beautiful wildlife, and our cooperation in protecting it. It shows the animals, places, and islands we share with other people. It's a point of connection that we share."
While the mural project is underway, the sister city association is trying to raise about $3,000 to support the effort. According to Hanrahan, the Ventura mural should be completed in about two weeks.
