Charles Rugg is just about done putting the finishing touches on his mural.
The former Los Angeles Galaxy soccer player turned abstract painter was tasked with putting together a piece inside an unusual canvas—a decommissioned lifeguard station.
That might not come off as the ideal surface, but in many ways, the unconventional is exactly what April Banks—a fellow artist who commissioned Rugg—is going for.
“You don’t always imagine a decommissioned lifeguard tower being the sort of place where one would paint,” Banks said with a laugh. “How can we reach people differently? That’s what I am always asking with my art.”
Opening on Aug. 19 at The Bunker art gallery parking lot in San Luis Obispo, the mural—titled Radiate—is just one part of Banks’ multi-month-long art festival, Braiding Water.
“Our goal is to get people to talk about the climate, water, and the ways their cultures have interacted with both throughout their history,” she said. “We plan to have it spread across a ton of different venues and be open free for everyone to participate in.”
Starting on Sept. 9, Braiding Water is a collaborative project between Banks, R.A.C.E. Matters SLO, and the San Luis Obispo Museum of Art. While the event’s official start won’t be until September, Banks says the repurposed lifeguard station, titled Radiate, will serve as a home base of sorts for Braiding Water throughout its entire run.
“A lot of people don’t realize things like public beaches or public pools have this history of exclusion, so using these places is a really powerful tool to teach that,” Banks said.
Before her work with R.A.C.E. Matters, Banks spent time doing similar projects in Los Angeles—where she is currently based—focusing on a blend of mixed media artwork and social justice-based exhibitions.
“I am obsessed with lifeguard stations—one of my favorite pieces I did was a lifeguard tower in Santa Monica that had a very similar message,” she said. “A piece like this just really highlights everything Braiding Water is about.”
Banks said she is all about drawing people into her exhibits to reflect on themselves and the relationship they have with the world around them.
“Every piece of art I do—especially for this event—is meant to invite people in to not just view, but also be part of the experience,” she said.
It’s why R.A.C.E. Matters SLO reached out to Banks more than a year ago to begin planning the grand celebration of all things water, reflections, and race and the relationship they have in SLO County.
“We want people to interact with pieces [like Radiate] and share how their history reflects off of the art,” R.A.C.E. Matters Executive Director Courtney Haile said. “It is amazing how much we can all gain from having people—especially people of color—share their oral history and tradition.”
Fittingly enough, according to Haile, the repurposed lifeguard station itself has a history that epitomizes the spirit of cooperation that brought Braiding Waters to life in the first place.
Haile said they initially planned for the lifeguard station to remain on the beach. But when that became logistically difficult, they moved on to the idea of having it serve as a constant throughout all of the Braiding Water festivities.
“We had a ton of places to pivot as far as having it serve as a hub for activities throughout the event—but like the beach idea, we ran into some issues of transporting it from place to place,” she said. “Eventually we decided having it rest at The Bunker was the best idea, and that’s where it rests now.”
Both Haile and Banks said they didn’t mind the process of finding a home for the station. Banks explained that in many ways, the finickiness of finding where to move the station was similar to the uncaring and often random-feeling nature of water itself.
“That is a theme that is important to all of us—the way we are interwoven with the whims of nature—much like how we were woven to the whims of where we could take this repurposed station,” she said with a chuckle. “We are nature, nature is important to us, and even if we think we are above it, we are quickly reminded that we are not—we all intertwine.” Δ
Staff Writer Adrian Vincent Rosas is enjoying the brisk air at Morro Bay Beach. Reach him at arosas@newtimesslo.com.
This article appears in Aug 24 – Sep 3, 2023.