Long overlooked, Riverside’s Eastside is gaining positive attention. That’s in part due to a growing number of murals, which are brightening faded walls and making everyone, including people passing through by car, see familiar sites in a fresh way. “When you see a color on a wall, you think, ‘People live here,’” reflects Juan Navarro, a leader in the barrio’s art movement. Now, the Eastside is the subject of an art exhibit at Riverside’s Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art Culture. Twenty artists contributed to “Hecho en Park Avenue” (Made on Park Avenue), which occupies the free gallery space in the museum lobby through Sept. 28. Navarro co-curated the exhibit with Michelle Espino. Most of the artists are associated with the Eastside Arthouse, a collective Navarro founded in 2021 that operates out of a former appliance store. Explains artist Rick Garcia: “This whole show is about Park Avenue. And the Eastside Arthouse is on Park Avenue.” Rick Garcia painted “This is Your Sign,” in which he rendered versions of various signs and artworks from Riverside’s Eastside. “Hecho en Park Avenue” (Made on Park Avenue) is an exhibit at Riverside’s The Cheech of work by 20 local artists. (Photo by David Allen, Inland Valley Daily Bulletin/SCNG) Crowds turned out April 3 for the opening reception of “Hecho en Park Avenue” (Made on Park Avenue), an exhibit at Riverside’s The Cheech of work by 20 local artists about the city’s Eastside. (Photo by David Allen, Inland Valley Daily Bulletin/SCNG) “La Ventana,” by Kirsten Kanasta, combines cactus gardens and a church window. It’s part of “Hecho en Park Avenue” (Made on Park Avenue), an exhibit at Riverside’s The Cheech of work by 20 local artists about the city’s Eastside. (Photo by David Allen, Inland Valley Daily Bulletin/SCNG) Show Caption1 of 3Rick Garcia painted “This is Your Sign,” in which he rendered versions of various signs and artworks from Riverside’s Eastside. “Hecho en Park Avenue” (Made on Park Avenue) is an exhibit at Riverside’s The Cheech of work by 20 local artists. (Photo by David Allen, Inland Valley Daily Bulletin/SCNG) Expand Garcia’s painting “This is Your Sign” incorporates vintage signs and murals. Included are the Virgin Mary mural on the side of Tony’s Market, the towering Thunderbird Lodge blade sign and an elaborately designed piece of wall tile. Garcia, a sign painter, has an eye for these things. My favorite of his vignettes is the painted sign outside an ice store. It shows a cartoon figure of an iceman and a punning message: “I only have ice for you.” I was at The Cheech for the exhibit’s opening reception April 3. So were dozens and dozens of others, in a steadily replenishing supply. Family and friends of the artists. Art mavens making the rounds at Art Walk. And people from the Eastside who are not museumgoers yet felt a connection to the show. Navarro and Espino wanted to represent the neighborhood in a deeply rooted way. They gave prompts to the artists, many of whom are young and with less sense of history or community. “It was kind of like a school assignment,” Espino says wryly. “We told them to approach it almost journalistically, not focus on the cliches. Some of them got to know figures in the community.” I applaud the approach, but I’m nervous about the competition. “Ofelia Valdez-Yeager” is a portrait by Daniel Toledo of the late community leader and activist. It’s part of “Hecho en Park Avenue” (Made on Park Avenue), an exhibit at Riverside’s The Cheech of work by 20 local artists about the city’s Eastside. (Photo by David Allen, Inland Valley Daily Bulletin/SCNG) Tasked with making a tribute to Ofelia Valdez-Yeager, a community leader who died in 2024, painter Daniel Toledo had to research what she’d done and what she looked like. Toledo incorporated a few of Valdez-Yeager’s highlights: serving as the first Latina on the Riverside Unified school board, spearheading the fundraising that made The Cheech a reality, commissioning the monument to Cesar Chavez on the Main Street mall. Pointing out one detail of his painting, Toledo says: “The flower in a vase is a photo on her Facebook page.” Her portrait is one of the show’s standouts. Toledo became so inspired by Valdez-Yeager, he hopes to paint a mural of her somewhere. Kirsten Kanasta and Megan Jones both contributed pieces about the role of churches. In bright colors and sharp-edged rendering, Kanasta’s “La Ventana” (A Window) shows a stained-glass window and various cacti. “There are a lot of churches on Park Avenue,” she says, “and a lot of cactus gardens. I wanted to give viewers a window looking through the community, their values and traditions.” Megan Jones peeks out of her installation piece, “Haven,” meant to evoke the role churches play in the Eastside. It’s part of “Hecho en Park Avenue” (Made on Park Avenue), an exhibit at Riverside’s The Cheech of work by 20 local artists about the city’s Eastside. (Photo by David Allen, Inland Valley Daily Bulletin/SCNG) Jones’ “Haven” is an installation, a bit bigger than a phone booth, meant to evoke a chapel as well as the social role churches occupy. Her piece is made of discarded materials. Inside is a prayer kneeler. A loop of choir music plays softly. “It’s a way to transport you to a different place,” Jones says. Eastside staple Chela’s Bakery is the subject of Andrea Lopez’s oil painting, “Pan de Vida” (Bread of Life). Lopez had expected a short chat with the owner, Celia Gutierrez, about bread. Instead, she heard how Gutierrez had grown up in a large family without enough to eat and her pride that she can feed her family and her customers. “It was very, very inspiring. The direction I was going with it changed completely,” Lopez says. Rather than focus on bread, she depicted Gutierrez handing a concha to a girl who is actually the baker’s younger self, painted from a family photo, down to the same dress. Navarro recommended the story of another community figure, Larry Rios, to painter Roberto Cervantes. From speaking to Rios’ family, Cervantes learned that the patriarch had owned Lincoln Boxing Gym for 47 years before his death in 2021 at age 97 and taught boxing to generations of young people. Although they never met, Cervantes felt a connection to Rios because both men were born in Mexico City. Family and friends of Rios’ attended the Cheech reception. Some wore T-shirts in his honor. Some cried. To have him remembered in a piece of art in a museum, “it’s surprising for us,” says grandson Max Perez, standing feet from the painting. “It’s like he’s here, right here with us.” Stephanie Godoy painted “Stellar Nursery,” about a Riverside student who is newly arrived in America. It’s part of “Hecho en Park Avenue” (Made on Park Avenue), an exhibit at Riverside’s The Cheech of work by 20 local artists about the city’s Eastside. (Photo by David Allen, Inland Valley Daily Bulletin/SCNG) For her piece about recent immigrants, Stephanie Godoy sought a volunteer at Lincoln High during an art class she was teaching on behalf of the Riverside Art Museum. Would a student who was new to the United States be willing to be painted? Everyone was shy. One student raised his hand. “Then everyone raised their hand,” Godoy says, laughing. Too late! Her painting, “Stellar Nursery,” includes the birth of a sun, a soccer ball to reflect the boy’s interest and a construction toy of a steam shovel, the only toy he was able to bring with him from Central America. “Now,” says Godoy, who likes metaphors, “he’s constructing his new life.” Navarro contributed a portrait of a father and son retailer of lowrider products to represent that culture. Espino’s painting is of Lowell Elementary, firebombed in 1965. Related Articles This ex-New Yorker’s bagels fill a hole in Twentynine Palms Dennis McDougal remembered by Press-Enterprise journalists as ‘rare talent’ Val Kilmer was both star and iceman in Ontario for ‘Citizen Twain’ In Corona, leaders boycott ceremony for ‘horrible’ housing project Jimmy Carter, Sam Maloof crafted a friendship from Georgia to Alta Loma The two steered “Hecho en Park Avenue” away from politics. The exhibit “could have been more aggressive,” Navarro admits, but his aim was to humanize the neighborhood, not replay grievances. “Let’s focus on the positive,” Navarro says. “I want to serve out of love, not out of anger or resentment.” David Allen writes Wednesday, Friday and Sunday out of love and the need for a paycheck. Email dallen@scng.com, phone 909-483-9339, and follow davidallencolumnist on Facebook, @davidallen909 on X or @davidallen909.bsky.social on Bluesky. ...read more read less