Muralist Robert Vargas is painting a towering history of LA above the traffic
LOS ANGELES _ The rope tugs and Robert Vargas is hoisted with brushes and paint to the unfinished face of a child. Lips, nose, chin, she begins to bloom from the side of a building. An eye, five stories up, gleams. She is the color of clay and earth and soon she will be complete, looking over the homeless, glancing at rich girls and Escalades, peeking across the skyline toward the ocean.
"Hey, man," someone yells from below. "You painted that, right?"
Vargas nods.
"It's good, man."
The voice disappears down the alley. Vargas, suspended on a rig for high-rise window washers, turns back to the mural that is coming to life on a 12-story apartment building across from Pershing Square in downtown L.A. When he's done later this year, the canvas, 60,000 square feet of wall and windows, will tell the tale of the city with images of the L.A. River, Gustavo Dudamel, indigenous Tongva Indians, an ancient sycamore and three bright-winged angels.
"I'm starting to build a relationship with the wall," Vargas,
