Graffiti News

Farmworkers become the focus of the library mural

Johanna Poethig is redesigning her mural at Sonoma State University to remove depictions of Cesar Chavez and give farmworkers a more prominent place. According to the Santa Rosa Press Democrat’s September 18, 2026 report, the Oakland artist is working with the university on a revision that preserves the original artwork’s aesthetic intention while changing whom it commemorates.

The decision followed a New York Times investigation published in March 2026. As described by the Press Democrat, that reporting presented evidence and allegations that Chavez had groomed and sexually abused girls and women involved in the labor movement. University officials covered the mural with brown paper while considering a response. Interim provost Stacey Bosick described the pause as an opportunity for reflection and education.

For people who follow public art, the project raises a concrete issue: changing a monument’s central figure also changes the history viewers encounter. Here, the proposed revision redirects attention toward the people whose work sustained a movement, while retaining an existing artwork as the setting for that discussion.

Three women and embroidered patterns shape the design

Three female farmworkers occupy the center of Poethig’s proposed composition. One is Maria Moreno, whom the Press Democrat identifies as the first woman farmworker in the United States hired as a union organizer. A migrant worker and mother of twelve, Moreno appears with folded arms against a background of cultivated fields.

An Indigenous woman holding the Earth appears above the group. Another woman carries a platter of fruit and vegetables. Poethig found the photograph behind that figure on the website of Lideres Campesinas, which approved its use, according to the newspaper. Suggestions from a campus workshop helped bring the environment, the land and its produce into the design.

Textiles provide another connection to community contributions. Students Eddy Camacho and Camila Nava Lopez shared photographs of embroidery from collections kept by their mothers. Layered bands around a blouse’s neckline inspired a surrounding form for the three women. These details give viewers several ways to read the composition: through portraits, agricultural imagery and patterns carried through family collections.

The original work, dedicated in 2000, measures eight by twenty-four feet. It is a wood relief incorporating stain, paint, carving and marks made with a wood-burning tool. That material history matters when considering the redesign: the mural is also a shaped wooden surface, with a visual language the artist intends to maintain.

Campus discussion helped redirect the tribute

The redesign developed through conversations with students and university staff. Poethig visited the Rohnert Park campus for a lecture and workshop in May 2026. On September 4, she presented a design rendering during an online discussion attended by students, faculty, staff and others. The image was a proposal for the revised artwork, rather than a photograph of a completed installation.

Business Administration student Daisy Guevara argued for transferring the fire evoked by the original title, “Tiene la lumbre por dentro/ He has the fire within,” from one individual to the movement. Her contribution emphasized people whose roles had received less attention. Poethig also described being influenced by survivor Esmerelda Lopez’s view that the movement itself deserved to be understood as the hero.

Alegría De La Cruz of the California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation supported the university’s approach, according to the Press Democrat. She spoke about condemning Chavez while preserving the collective history of people transformed by farmworker organizing. These responses give the revision its central tension: acknowledging harm while keeping workers’ achievements visible.

The participation also changes how the artwork can be understood. Students supplied ideas and visual references that entered the proposed composition. For mural audiences, that offers a useful point of attention alongside the finished imagery: whose contributions shaped the public account on the wall.

The revised work is scheduled for March 2027

The unveiling is scheduled for March 11, 2027, at Sonoma State University’s Schulz Library. At the time of the September report, the original mural remained covered and the revised composition existed as a design rendering. A visit planned around the new work therefore needs to take that timetable into account.

The report does not provide visiting hours or campus access arrangements. Check university information before making a trip. When the revised work is available, its portraits, embroidered framing and agricultural imagery will offer specific details to examine alongside the original wood-relief technique. The relationship between those elements is the public-art story: how an existing commemorative surface can carry a different distribution of recognition.

Explore other public artworks through Wallscape’s map.

Source: Santa Rosa Press Democrat