A ten-foot by ten-foot mosaic of the Virgin of Guadalupe riding a surfboard next to the words “Save The Ocean” which mysteriously appeared under a train bridge in Encinitas, California around Easter 2011 has caused the city all kinds of grief and brought it worldwide attention from the art world. Firstly, the mosaic was drawing huge crowds to an already busy section of Encinitas Blvd, secondly, the city didn’t know if the artwork should be removed as grafitti or treasured as the folk art that it obviously is. Now, the artist who created it has finally come forward, according to a story in the North County Times.
Longtime Leucadia resident Mark Patterson, 58, notified the city through an attorney late Wednesday afternoon that he had created the piece, which appeared on a railroad bridge support along Encinitas Boulevard in late April. . . After his attorney contacted City Hall, Patterson told the North County Times in a telephone interview that he never expected his 10-by-10-foot mosaic would attract national and even international media attention. . . “I’m not used to this kind of attention,” the former software company employee said.
Now the the City of Encinitas knows whose responsible it still doesn’t solve what they’re going to do with it. Of course, the logical thing would be to just leave it, but as we’ve learned with skateboarding over the years, city governments rarely do the logical thing.
[Link: North County Times]
