The nature of this village is life-affirming, creative and community-building because of the men and women — many with Cal State Fullerton ties — who turned their artistic eye toward an urban landscape mottled by dereliction and disrepair, and saw the possibilities: pottery wheels spinning, sketchpads filling with theatrical costumes and quick studies, galleries color-splashed with canvases, and apartments in which a student could replenish his energy with a bowl of fruit before walking downstairs to take hold of his brush or chisel or soldering iron.

Of his own work, Vincent van Gogh said, “I dream my painting, and then I paint my dream.”

There were numerous dreamers who amplified the original concept fostered by community activist Don Cribb. One of these visionaries was Miguel Pulido, a Santa Ana council member now entering his eighth year as mayor. Pulido, who moved to Orange County from Mexico as a child and earned an engineering degree at Cal State Fullerton in 1980, continues to shepherd this area through its renaissance.

“Our hope was that with the university anchoring the Artists Village, other institutions and organizations would come into the area,” says Pulido. “That has happened with the arrival of advertising agencies, post-production facilities, the Orange County High School of the Arts and restaurants. The village is becoming more and more a cosmopolitan environment that is like nothing else in the county.”

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Lucy Chamberlain Tangarine Splash Glass