The Great Wall of Carmichael is a colorful, 100-foot-long cement mural in Carmichael, CA. The mural is decorated with scenes from the nearby American River. 

Location

The Great Wall of Carmichael is located at Carmichael Park in Carmichael, CA. This neighborhood is an unincorporated suburb located in Sacramento County, California, United States. The mural sits on the corner of Fair Oaks Boulevard and Grant Avenue. It's exact coordinates are N 38° 37.770 W 121° 19.724 10S E 645474 N 4276987. Other features of Carmichael park include a year-long Farmer's Market, tennis courts, disc golf course and dog park.

History

The Great Wall of Carmichael was created by artist Hugh Gorman. The piece began in 2002 and concluded in 2003. 

The artwork on the mural stems from the history of the area. Carmichael runs along the American River, a 119 mile river that enabled settlement in the area. This lends to the water-theme of the mural. In fact, much of the artwork uses important history of the area.  Before being founded, the land belonged to Maidu Indians dating back to 1,000 BC. The area saw an increase in inhabitants following the 1849 Gold Rush. Shortly thereafter, the community was officially founded by Daniel W. Carmichael  in 1909.

Today, Carmichael is home to over 60,000 residents. 
 

Artwork

In creating the mural, artist Hugh Gorman set out to show the passage of human history as seen from the American River. In fact, the very first etching (when reading from Left to Right) reads, "The Period of Human Existence along the Carmichael Waterfront". From there, we see a rendering of the San Fransisco Bay unfold into the rest of the mural (because the River feeds into the Bay). The next major feature is wildlife of the area, then a famous bridge in the area, River Bend Park Bridge. Below this bridge we see dozens of river rafters (a popular activity in the area), where the passage of history concept is best communicated. According to the artist, "we’re going through time, and if you look at the people in the rafts, you’ll see this is earlier and this is later. And that’s me. I’m in there in an inner tube with a beer bottle tied to a string. And you’ll see that everybody (in the rafts) is white at first and then pretty soon, they start sprinkling different colors as the population changes". This passage of time continues through the mural, where we can see things like the Native people of the land, goldminers, etc. Again, the artist explains each piece of art "here’s the Indians right here, and even right here. And here’s the Gold Rush right here. Well, here’s a Jeep from 1945 that marks the end of World War II. And right here are people fishing for salmon, and the way they used to fish for salmon was they just used a pitch fork. And then here you’ll see a family sitting around and the kids playing in the water. They’ve got their little picnic out. And then you go over to the Indian times, and there they are. There are families sitting around and the kids are playing in the water. So, nothing has changed, except for the color of their skin.”

Among the major features of the mural there are small fish in the water, each painted by people passing by. This was added as a way for the people of Carmichael to contribute to the details of the mural.

A feature that is often missed is a large rock sat on top of the mural. This heart -shaped attachment is actually from the artists backyard. He found it while building a studio.

Because the Sacramento County Historical Society thought so highly about Hugh’s mural at Carmichael Park, the organization created a new award category, called “Heritage through Art,” and awarded him the first award in that category.
 

History and Method of The Wall

The mural was a commissioned product of The Sacramento Metropolitan Arts Commission. Hugh Gorman was hired from a newspaper article listing to complete the mural a few blocks over from where it currently stands. He had some experience painting other murals in Carmichael, like the Fair Oaks Veterans Memorial Amphitheater in Village Park. Shortly after starting the mural he received a call from a local real estate developer George Tsakopoulos. George requested that the mural not be completed in front of his property, which led to the project being abandoned. Shortly thereafter, it's current location was found as an alternative place. Counting this delay, the mural took 5 years to complete. 

The mural was completed in 2002, but few people attended the dedication because of rain. Luckily, a second dedication was held in spring, which led to a greater attendance to celebrate the addition to Carmichael. 

The Great Wall of Carmichael uses a bas-relief method, which is used to keep natural shape of the figures being drawn. The mural is painted using acrylic polymer on formed concrete. This slab of concrete is actually 5 different panels, each 20 feet wide and 7 feet tall. The artist tried to make the mural appear as 3D, not one long line of concrete. 

The Artist

Hugh Gorman was born in St. Helena, California. He had four siblings. Hugh had shown interest in art from an early age, "As a little kid, they gave me clay and building blocks and I’d make little faces out of the clay,” said Hugh, who moved to Folsom in 1945 and to the area around today’s American River College in 1946. “I sort of knew how to draw real early on. Everybody always said, ‘Oh, you’re so luck, because you know what you’re going to do. You’re going to be an artist.’ And that was implanted early on, and people hired me to do portraits at 6, 7 years old. Some people are born with different things and I was born as (an artist). My dad was a writer, so he was a creative guy". 

Hugh attended all years of schooling (elementary, middle, high) in the Carmichael area before attending the University of California, Berkeley with a degree in landscape architecture. He graduated in 1967. 

These days, Hugh lives in Fair Oaks, California with his wife Teri. 

Sources:

https://www.carmichaelchamber.com/carmichael-history.html
https://www.sacnaturecenter.net/education/maidu-culture/
https://www.carmichaelchamber.com/about-carmichael.html
https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bas-relief#:~:text=Bas%2Drelief%20is%20a%20type,without%20twisting%20the%20figures%20themselves.
http://www.valcomnews.com/artist-speaks-about-%E2%80%9Cthe-great-wall-of-carmichael%E2%80%9D-other-works/
https://activerain.com/blogsview/2234083/have-you-seen-the-great-wall-of-carmichael-
https://www.youtube.com/embed/M_caTY-VPhw?rel=0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_caTY-VPhw&feature=emb_logo

https://www.waymarking.com/waymarks/wm69T8_The_Great_Wall_of_Carmichael_Carmichael_CA