Time warp Santa Cruz County...now called Neary's Lagoon. This mural is called "At Home in Neary Lagoon" and depicts an early Native American environment. I feel confident that in those days it wasn't called Neary's Lagoon. Here's an aerial view of Neary's Lagoon today:
Kinda different....

Okay, I'm still researching the Neary family (Sandy Lydon probably has all the information). But in the last hour of research here's what I have about one of the family members:

"1893 - August 15, 1893, James Neary, an old and respected resident of Santa Cruz, (and the brother of pioneer Patrick Neary for whom the lagoon is named) killed his wife with a butcher knife. He claimed that in a jealous rage he had threatened his wife with the knife, but after thinking the better of it had thrown the weapon on a table and it had bounced back up and struck his wife in a freak accident.

But at his trial, the couple's eldest daughter said that she had witnessed her father intentionally stab her mother. So it came down to it being his word against hers. It was a sensational trial which kept the family name in the papers and tongues wagging for many months.

Jim Neary was found guilty and sentenced to San Quentin for 30 years. He was released, old in ill health and died shortly after his return to Santa Cruz."

Dun dun (Law and Order tone).

Meanwhile, there was another Neary, San Francisco based, who owned a big piece of Pleasure Point in the early 20th century.

This mural, created by Dawn Wagner, on the side of Mountain Propane in Felton makes me think about the old TV show "Lassie" starring my first crush, Tommy Rettig, and before that, the movie "Lassie Come Home" and don't forget, "Son of Lassie" - starring none other than the handsome and debonair young Peter Lawford (later known as "the forgotten Rat Packer"). Oh, and he was married to a Kennedy: Patricia. Lassie and the Kennedys...both big names in my growing up years. Here's Dawn's website, she's a very talented artist:
http://www.aromaticdesigns.com/





Oh, and most of all: acknowledgments to all the beautiful collies who were stars in my childhood, too!

Come and Go

This 25 foot by 80 foot mural stood on Pacific Avenue from New Year's Eve until late July 1998. The photography, design and photocompositing was done by Darryl Ferrucci and features Moving and Storage Performance Company and Crash, Burn and Die Dance Company. Now you can see a bit of this mural at the corner of Seabright Avenue and Soquel Avenue (wall of the virtual Rio Theater).
My friend Joan said this about them: "I was reminded of an interesting mural I saw recently driving on Soquel Avenue on the left up high, are two interesting dancers that look like relatives of the wonderful group that used to be in downtown Santa Cruz on the side of the Lulu Carpenter building. They were actual models from a popular 90's dance group here called "Crash, Burn and Die" and I loved getting to look at them every time I walked over to Pacific Ave, but they disappeared when they were going to put up a monstrous building in the former Bookshop Santa Cruz site (and didn't when they economy went belly up)."

There are a number of online articles about the dance group but I haven't yet found a video clip. Will still work on that for this blog.

Here's the photo of James Dean which inspired a mural on the Brookdale Lodge many years ago (at least 20 that I remember). The mural was pretty good and very memorable in the San Lorenzo Valley...so much so that when the Lodge's new owners decided to paint over it there was a huge outcry. This resulted in a repainting of the image (left) which, well, falls way short in quality compared to the original. Notice in this mural a faint figure to the right of Dean, climbing a ladder putting a big puzzle piece up. Could this be a self portrait of the original muralist, saved from the paint over?

I have been searching for a photo of the original mural. As of yet I haven't found one, but in the process I have discovered that James Dean is a very popular figure in murals! For starters, check out: http://www.americanlegends.com/jamesdean/photos/murals.html
then if that isn't enough, try this: http://www.findamuralist.com/California/jana-pitlova-toluca-lake.php
and okay, so here's the James Dean and Elvis barn in Warwick, New York:
Or how about this fabulous one in Denver:












There are more. Try Googling them yourself and see just how many you can find!

My college degree was a major in art with a minor in education. When I graduated I looked for jobs as an art teacher (back in the day when schools actually HAD art teachers)...but it was one of those interesting situations where the schools were looking for teachers who had experience. And... you can't GET experience if you can't get a job. It was a Catch 22 back there in Iowa. Needless to say my career bent into a different direction.

But I have always loved "kid art". Fresh, imaginative, colorful, inspired.

Here are a few details from the Bay Elementary School mural at the intersection of Bay and Mission. This is a mural that was guided by mural artist James Achbacher. The young artists of these mermaids were around 9 years old at the time.

Interesting to observe the differences. I wonder if there is a reason why all their tails curve to the visual right? And having queried that, I realize that when I draw people or animals, I have more difficulty rendering them posing to the visual right than left. Hmmmm. What's with that?

Now I'm going to have to experiment: being a right handed person, will drawing with my left hand make it easier to draw people and animals facing the visual right? I'll give it a try.

Here are a few pix of the mural on the side wall of Sylvan Music. It's a long mural and looks like it's spray painted. Pretty cool. I especially like that the artist, Lanny Markasky, created a whole bunch of Fender strings packages...okay - I play guitar and Fender strings...what can I say?!

Oh but wait! Here's Lanny in a break dancing video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OCAUSjESNoQ

Lanny is a young artist who works in many different media: oil, acrylic and spray painting, and he is also a tattoo artist, graphic and web designer, break dancer, and a magician. Is that enough?? Big artist!

Well, even though the rain and a holiday and work-in-general have kept me from driving around taking pictures, I have continued to do research and put together a spread sheet to keep track of the murals I need to follow-up on. Right now I have about 100 mural sites and I haven't even explored much of mid or south county yet! How cool is THAT?!

Last post I included a couple of details from a mural in Santa Cruz. Above is the full mural (picture credit I think to the artist) out on Mill in downtown Santa Cruz, created by Josh Yoches and Elijah Pfotenhauer. Here is a YouTube video of the work in progress: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoS9eZ7cJ6Y

And here is Josh's website, which is pretty awesome. Interesting and talented young man:
http://joshyoches.com

In future blogs I will include websites and other information about some of the mural artists that have created pieces in Santa Cruz County. Some deliciously amazing talent here!!