Huntington resident Cindy Simon has taken steps to gather interest from fellow Palisadians in pursuing restoration efforts on the mural located across the Palisades High School football stadium on Temescal Canyon Road, at Bowdoin.
This 500 – foot – long mural is titled “History of the Palisades” and documents the lifestyle of the local Native Americans in Southern California before the arrival of the Europeans. The scene has been documented by Robin Dunitz, and several files exist at the Helen Topping Architecture and Fine Arts Library at USC. (The Robin Dunitz description collection consists of more than 2,000 digitized 35mm slides of murals in Los Angeles photographed by Dunitz.)
Although the 500-feet mural, titled “History of the Paliades, 1983,” was painted in 1983, with contributions from the Palisades High School, class of 1983, the mural was copyrighted 1984 by Kat Kozik, David Stauch and Citywide Murals.
A copyright ensures that the owner has a right to make copies and to publicly display the artwork— permission will be needed restore this mural that was painted by Kozik, Stauch, Jennifer Wilsey and Cathy Salser.
In 2008 a restoration was undertaken by local artist Terri Bromberg, and sponsored by The Temescal Canyon Association.
When walking by the mural today, it is clear another restoration is needed because of chipped paint, fading colors and graffiti remediation.
Last November, Simon dropped off a letter to 12 Radcliffe neighbors whose property backs onto Temescal, notifying them that there was interest in a restoration of the mural and asking them to assist in cutting back the hanging vines from their yards that had tumbled over top of the painting.
Many people acted right away. For others whose gardeners could not reach the tall section of the wall, Palisadian Tracey Price of American Landscaping asked her team to assist.
Volunteers also pulled out the tall grasses that had grown up at the bottom of the mural and actually blocked egress for Palisades High School students. The mural is now clear for viewing.
“The next step will be to have a few mural artists take look at the mural and give us their design and restoration thoughts,” Simon said and added in her letter to Radcliffe neighbors, “One more thing – we cleaned off some black graffiti from the lower section of the mural. If you ever see graffiti on the mural, please contact me and we will take care of it right away. ”
Please feel free to contact Simon if you have interest in participating in this effort. TEXT ONLY: (310) 480-7549.
Simon is a Pacific Palisades Community Council Area (6) Representative, but currently this is not a PPCC sponsored project.
I love that mural. Thank you, Cindy Simon, for taking the lead in seeing it is restored.