Eternity Street

Muralist Johanna Poethig likes what she does. “I relish the challenge of making a site into a place,” she once declared. “I like the adventure of working in public and with the public. I love the demands of architectural scale.” Such ardor is evident in one of Poethig’s best-known creations, “Calle de la Eternidad,” the acrylic-on-concrete face of 351 S. Broadway (near Fourth) in downtown Los Angeles.

The sense of movement imparted by the upward reach of arms is reinforced not only by the building’s tall, narrow front, but also by the Bunker Hill office towers in the background. The mural’s visual anchor is an Aztec calendar and its geometry of circles within circles. Poethig has indicated that the choice of pre-Columbian elements is a nod to Broadway’s status as a center of Latino life in Los Angeles.

The text (“My steps along this street resound in another street…”) is from "Aqui," a poem by Octavio Paz. The words are “about time and place,” Poethig has said. “It’s trying to bring some poetry to the idea of being at home and to exile too at the same time.”

I find the colors especially striking – flame red; lightning yellow; stone gray; aquamarine.

Poethig teaches at California State University, Monterey Bay. “Calle de la Eternidad” was completed in 1993. Her assistants on the project were Juventino Lopez, Ayna Velazquez and Gustavo Leclerc. The work was supported by the Social and Public Art Resources Center (known locally as SPARC) and the City of Los Angeles Cultural Affairs Department.