NAPA, Calif. — Forty-seven plates spinning in the air. That’s how Napa-based artist Kristina Young describes her life as she prepares to put the finishing touches on the Napa Quake Mosaic. Nearly 10 years in the making, this public/private artwork will soon grace the surface of a stationary car donated by the Napa Valley Wine Train and settle into its home in Napa’s Rail Arts District, a 2-mile linear arts area that runs adjacent to the Napa Valley Wine Train tracks and the Napa Valley Vine Trail through the heart of downtown Napa.
The endeavor began as a way to memorialize the 6.1 earthquake that struck Napa on Aug. 24, 2014, and subsequent losses from the 2020 fires. But achieving a complex, multifaceted, community-built public art project such as the Napa Quake Mosaic has proved to be as shaky as the temblor.
In partnership with RAD, $25,000 completion funds are needed by the end of 2023 to match a challenge grant from the Gasser Foundation. Donated funds will be earmarked for engineering drawings, a team of installers, construction help to bolt the mural onto the train car, work space and materials.
“Rather than a reminder of loss,” Young said, “the Napa Quake memorial is meant to symbolize healing, recovery and strength and to help inspire people to find beauty and meaning by supporting each other after trauma.”
Young is no stranger to creating large works of public and private art, including mosaics and murals.
A ceramicist, muralist and painter, she grew up on the East Coast in the Washington, D.C., area but moved to California in 1996 to study illustration at the California College of the Arts. In 1999, she began working with the Arts Council Napa Valley as a part-time graphic designer.
She moved to Napa in 2003 to be closer to her work.
Her completed projects include “On the Road Again,” a mosaic for the Gasser Foundation, and “Athena,” a mosaic at Scala Osteria in Napa. She has worked on collaborative mural projects with local students that include “Our Pollinator Mural” with fifth- and sixth-graders at Pueblo Vista Elementary, “A River Calms Our Wild” with third-graders at Willow Elementary in Napa and “Southern Crossing: You Make the Road by Walking” with Napa Youth for DACA, LAYLA at Napa High School. She has also completed “Moving Toward the Light: Our Quarantine Experience,” a collaborative mural with Innovations Community Center.
Young’s complete catalog of work can be viewed at her website, www.klythefly.com.
“I’ve been doing a lot of these collaborative projects where I create a design and then draw it on the wall as a paint-by-number mural,” Young said. “Then I get the people involved to help block it in. And I go back and clean up, do all the details. It really creates ownership and pride in the work by the community that will actually be using and seeing it every day.”
It’s the same approach she used in creating the Napa Quake Mosaic.
Young was managing the Grand Hand Gallery in downtown Napa when the 2014 earthquake struck. The contents of the store, which specialized in handmade gifts, were decimated. Soon she was hearing countless other stories of loss from friends and neighbors.
“I met with a few other artists who wanted to do something with the materials and concept,” Young said, “so I set up the gallery as a collection point through October 2014 and worked with several volunteers to sort by color and material over the next year.”
Countless remains of cracked and broken beloved collections of ceramics and glass poured in.
“I literally had tons of material but no design yet. I really believe in site-specific design, so I needed a location and substrate before I could go any farther,” Young said.
By 2016 Young and RAD had formed a partnership to create and install the Napa Quake Mosaic. With crucial partnerships in place, Young set about creating a design for one side of a 12-by-40-feet rail car. The finished image contains more than 31,000 shards grouted into 406 separate sections meant to resemble a rectangular core sample of the earth sitting on top of the ground composed of horizontal bands of various sizes, shapes and colors.
Young’s deep roots in the community enabled her to enlist the support of hundreds of volunteers, including students, business owners, nonprofits, funders and fellow artists to realize her multilayered vision. Since 2016 she has held more than 50 workshops in schools, nonprofits and in her own studio with over 1,000 community members of all ages helping to create the bulk of the mosaic’s design.
Young emphasized that the process of working with the community made her feel a deep responsibility to preserve and honor each object.
“I wanted to give these treasured items a second life in this installation by keeping the objects as intact and recognizable as possible to allow their owners to find them in the completed design,” she said.
“When we installed a section of it at the Napa Fair last year it was the first time I saw that much of it put together,” Young said. “It was incredible, and this was only one-fourth of it. But the best thing was seeing people come up to it to touch it or find their section or donation or discover it for the first time. It’s just how I envisioned it -- as an interactive piece that people would feel connected to.”
After many stops and starts, including COVID-19 delays, the Napa Quake Mosaic will finally make its official debut sometime in 2024, the 10th anniversary of the South Napa earthquake.
“It’s honestly hard to put into words the feeling I think I’ll have when it’s done,” Young said. “It will be not only an exercise in patience but the witnessing of a minor miracle.”
To contribute to the project, visit www.radnapa.org/membership/ and click to a drop-down under the heading “Support.” Contributions are tax-deductible. For additional information, contact RAD at 707-501-5355 or email info@radnapa.org.
Evy Warshawski is a longtime promoter of the arts in Napa Valley. From 2004 to 2011 she was executive/artistic director at the Napa Valley Opera House, and in 2018 she and her husband, Morrie, formed E&M Presents to bring more family-oriented entertainment to Napa County. She has served on the board of Leadership Napa Valley and has been a member of the city of Napa's Public Arts Steering Committee and the Napa County Library Commission. She currently is a member of the County's Arts & Culture Grants Committee and a member of the Napa Valley Register's editorial board.
I'm glad to see it near completion. Pieces of my mother's antique Chinese vase are in it.