Copyright SAN DIEGO UNION TRIBUNE PUBLISHING COMPANY Feb 20, 2003

Mario Torero has painted "The Eyes of Picasso" more than once. More than twice. He'll paint them again if he has to.

Looks like, sooner or later, he'll have to.

Artist Torero's 20-by-35-foot mural adorns the west side of a four-story tower that is part of the Carnation Building downtown. You can't miss it. It's long been, and continues to be, the most dramatic image in the neighborhood -- and that includes the spectral superstructure of the emerging Petco Park nearby.

Torero first painted his "Eyes of Picasso" on the side of the Knights of Pythias Building (at Third Avenue and E Street) in the '70s. But when the building came down -- to make way for Horton Plaza shopping center -- so did the mural. "The Eyes" reappeared in 1990 when Torero painted them on what had been the old Carnation Dairy. He's repainted them there several times, including the time when trustees of the former owner of the building had them obscured in beige.

Now the Carnation Building -- home to Sushi Performance & Visual Art and the Debra Owen Gallery, among others -- is in escrow, and will be renovated.

Torero, an activist of much passion, says his initial mission was "to take public art out of the barrios and bring it downtown. This ('The Eyes') was something that was going to be preserved forever."

It hasn't worked out that way.

But Torero is undaunted. The image, he says, "became our flag, our identity." And, he adds, with confidence, "If they tear down the building and put it up again without the mural, everyone will still see 'The Eyes.' It'll take a generation before one can look at that building and not remember."

Torero hasn't given up on the idea of repainting "The Eyes of Picasso" on whatever new building goes up in this East Village location. "It's something we hope to dialogue (with the new owners)," he says.

Or he says the bricks on which the mural is painted could be saved and somehow remounted. Or -- and Torero's eyes twinkle at this idea -- perhaps "The Eyes" could be resurrected on the facade of the new library designated for the neighborhood.

As downtown, and the East Village in particular, is reinvented, Torero is both philosophical and resolute.

"We are losing our past," he says. "How can we move to the future and not save something from it?

"It's not dead as long as 'The Eyes' are there."

Eyes of Picasso Mural
Eyes of Picasso Web Site

David L. Coddon: (619) 293-1348; david.coddon@uniontrib.com