The Surfing Madonna Complex: A Political Awakening in Encinitas

She appeared on Good Friday beneath a railway bridge in the California beach town of Encinitas: the Virgin of Guadalupe calmly surfing a cobalt blue wave, her cloak pointing toward the words "SAVE THE OCEAN." "The train bridge created the perfect frame for a work of art," says Mark Patterson, who left his software career to create the 10-foot-square "Surfing Madonna" mosaic, planning each detail down to the black booties on the Virgin’s feet. "I couldn’t put her on the board barefoot—it just seemed inappropriate," he says. "The public seemed to love that."

The city council, however, didn’t. Neither booties nor an environmentalist message ("Save the Ocean" is the artwork’s official title) could stop the Madonna from violating the city’s graffiti ordinance: Patterson had installed her anonymously, without the permission of Encinitas. As The San Diego Union-Tribune put it less than a week after the mosaic’s debut, "Surfing Madonna may be wiped out."