Following the safety protocols of the CDC due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Winters Participation Gallery and eighteen students painted the east wall of the John Rogers building, which currently houses the Winters History Museum.  Kate Humphrey worked with students on the design. Jaime Montiel and Cel Galabasa coordinated the students during the implementation phase.  

Theme: Building Use and Social Justice

John Rogers Building--Winters Museum - 2020 - pandemic year  (#3)

• Charley Wallace commissioned WPG for a mural on the east side of the John Rogers building

• Used a different technique than on other murals--pixilated--impressionistic 

• The mural is composed of a series of vignettes

• During the design phase and during the painting phase, artists wore masks and practiced social distancing. Painted in masks and as much as possible 6ft. apart

• Charley wanted to incorporate the history of the building

  • The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers built the structure for the Bureau for Reclamation officials who were in charge of building the Monticello Dam.

  • Winters Judicial Chambers and courthouse

  • Yolo County Library

  • Winters Chamber of Commerce

  • Winters Express office

    • Throughout the mural, you will see newspaper articles that indicate the current events (at the time) that are happening on the mural

  • Barbershop

  • Social justice issues--past and present

    • Charley wanted to honor the Japanese community that was incarcerated in internment camps

    • Students wanted to document the Black Lives Matter rally organized by high school students and held at Rotary Park

Right-hand side 

• Dorothea Lange's photos documenting the construction of the Monticello Dam

  • See the dam midway through the construction

  • Horse--Dorothea Lange’s photo of the razed town of Monticello--a city destroyed.  The lone horse walking through the rubble symbolizes the loss.  

Train station headed to internment camps

• Depiction from a Dorthea Lang photo of the Kato, Kozen, and Esaki families at the Turlock Assembly Center awaiting placement to the Gila River internment camp

• Jim Kozen visited the museum during the first exhibition of the Lost Japanese Community of Winters and pointed to himself in the mural.

Fields behind the Japanese

• Tractor and laborers--represents the land taken from the Japanese, and also the laborers who have been the “backbone” of California agriculture

• Large field worker with fruit and next to him, large-scale renderings of locally grown crops

  • Behind a laborer picking crops

Printing press

• Antique printing press that was featured for several years in the museum

  • Students were fascinated by the machine and wanted to incorporate it into the mural

• Newt Wallace composing an article for the paper

• Roll call of Winters Express publishers underneath him

Door provides separation into the next feature--although (fun fact) Newt makes another appearance as the “World's Oldest Paper Boy.”  He delivered papers along Main Street into his 90’s

• Library books and the scales of justice reference the history of the building and its uses through the years

Social Justice

• Peaceful protest supporting the Black Lives Matter movement organized by high school girls

• Internment camp--has two meanings

  • the Japanese train trip has finished, and they are now unjustly incarcerated at Gila River internment camp

  • Also represents the camps at the Southern border where heartbreaking conditions at child migrant camps were a focus at this time