Replies(2)
Titled “Chrysanthemums (Amate),” the painting features colorful birds and flowers, pairing bark paper paints from Central Mexico with wood block prints from Japan. Here it is shown as a work in progress. (Jet Martinez)
REDWOOD CITY, CA After Bay Area artist Jet Martinez was commissioned to paint a 100-foot-long mural in downtown Redwood City, he began digging into the city s history.
Martinez knew that Mexican explorers were among the first to settle in the area in the 1700s. He found that in the early 1900s, the city was known as the chrysanthemum capital of the world after Japanese immigrants settled in the area and began to grow flowers. He then read that while many Japanese Americans were held in internment camps in the aftermath of the attack on Pearl Harbor, local farmers collected cuttings from the flowers and returned them to the Japanese after they returned.