ARMANDO LERMA

In 2011, Armando Lerma (formerly of the Date Farmers collaborative) started the Coachella Walls mural project in downtown Coachella’s historic Pueblo Viejo District. It has since become an essential, ongoing arts-driven revitalization project, celebrating and exalting the city’s marginalized, low-income community. In addition to stimulating foot traffic, Coachella Walls, dedicated “to the anonymous farmworker,” raises awareness about the eastern Coachella Valley. For Desert X, Lerma created La Fiesta en el Desierto on the side of a candy and piñata store, El Tepeyac.

neville wakefield: What was it like growing up in Coachella?

armando lerma: My family came here like in the late ’50s. They came as migrant workers and then ended up staying out here. I have a huge family. There are ten uncles and aunts on both sides. Most of them live here in Coachella, so I was always around family.

There wasn’t much out here during that time. It was mostly desert and, you know, no TV. Hot summers. But it was fun. We were always messing around, playing in the desert, just exploring. We were always outside. We were always playing with other kids in the neighborhood. I had a really good time.

And then I went to a Christian school, so we would be studying the Bible, and the Bible would always be talking about the desert. So it’s kind of weird. I felt like I lived in a Bible kind of world.

In terms of the idea of the wilderness and being cast into it?

Yeah, it was real. I identified with it.

You were self-taught, right? You didn’t have any formal art training.

Well, I did go to school, and I studied art, but I was at Northridge after the earthquake. There was nothing really to the art department. I remember teaching myself, taking studio time, and just painting on my own.

When you came back after that period, had Coachella changed a lot? How has it evolved in the time that you’ve been there?

It’s looking a lot better. It has evolved a lot in the last three years, especially downtown, close to my studio. Before this it was really neglected. There was nothing happening. It was like a time capsule. And that’s why it’s cool to see the new park, and they’re opening up a new library.

What’s driving that? I think it’s time, you know? People are seeing an opportunity to make things better because there was a void. And the Coachella festival has brought attention to the city in a weird way.

There’s a strange relationship between Coachella the festival and Coachella the town because the festival is actually in Indio.

Yeah. And what’s crazy is that before the festival if you were to bring up Coachella, it was like derogatory. It kind of had an edge to it, or like a criminal element because it used to be kind of crazy back in the day. Now it’s not. It’s pretty calm.

Tell me a little bit about the Coachella Walls mural project you started.

I was always interested in murals. That’s one thing that I wanted to get into or that inspired me, but I never really did it. I had been living away from Coachella, and then around 2014 I came back and I started that project because I met other muralists and knew the city council members and the mayor, and I just thought it would be a good time to do it.

As a way of giving back to the city?

I see the murals as a teaching tool for the young people, something to give them inspiration. You can go up to those murals and look at them, and you can figure them out or you can see how they did them.

It’s an ongoing program?

Yeah. We’re still working on it, and the city has been really good, giving us some money to get the murals done, and they want to continue with it.

Tell me about the mural that you did for Desert X and the adjacent mural that was already on the wall.

That wall, it’s been a problem. Even the city was kind of mad because they weren’t happy without the [adjacent] chicken mural. I was like, “Well, I’m going to do the whole wall,” but I knew I had to do just half first and see if I could get the [store owner] to be cool with it, and then she wasn’t.

If I’d been able to use the whole wall, it would have been a lot more impressive. It would have felt like one unit. Instead, it looks like half some random mural and then half La Fiesta. I recognize that as a problem, but that [store owner] was tough. She’s still tough.

But in a way it speaks to the reality of these things. There’s always a negotiation, and so for this one you had to negotiate with the owner of the piñata store and the chicken mural.

Yeah, I recognize the symbolism in all of this.

I’m going to have to do something. I’m even thinking [the other muralist] could come cover my part up so at least it’s just one thing, because [the store owner] likes the chicken stuff because it’s like a piñata for the kids. She thought mine was a little too dark.

Yeah, but you made some concessions. You gave her some chickens, right?

Yeah, which is crazy for me. Artists aren’t supposed to be putting up with this kind of stuff. But here I am negotiating chickens. But it’s not too bad. I had to take it in stride.

It was nice to see people come out. They came out, and they went inside and bought an ice cream. They bought a piñata. They bought something. So the mural worked because it got people in.

We had talked about identifying with the clown figures. Is that part of the artistic identification?

I’ve been painting clowns for a while and didn’t realize what I was doing, or really didn’t understand what the clown was, but that’s how I understand it now: I’m making fun of them, and they’re laughing at me. It’s like an exchange, and it’s all in good fun.

Apart from the owner of the piñata store, how have people received it?

People have been cool with it. Everybody has been positive. And people were excited that it was part of Desert X because it brought attention to the other [Coachella Walls] murals and the town.

In a general sense, Desert X provided a map for people who didn’t know how to approach the desert and gave them a reason to explore it, and I think the mural project does the same thing for downtown Coachella.

Definitely, it’s a diplomatic approach. It opens it up. It’s a reason to come out here and check it out.

Can you tell me about the dedication? Coachella Walls is dedicated to the anonymous farmworker.

The first phase of our project was dedicated to farmworkers. That’s the world of my parents. They came here as farm workers, and I think almost everybody here is connected to the agricultural industry in some way. So it was a way to give back and recognize that work.