Santa Ysabel Art Gallery gathered young artists to help with the second installment of the Santa Ysabel Mural Project, creating a vibrant nature-themed mural. Headed by local artists Annie Dover and Anastasia Castle, they kicked off the week with Spencer Valley Jump Start campers on Aug. 8, then invited kids from across the region to participate in this collaborative project at the gallery on Aug. 10.
Dover said originally the idea was to create a mural surrounding the gallery, so a call was made by SYAG Director Stephen Clugston for interested artists, and both she and Castle showed up for the first meeting.
“We tossed some ideas back and forth, and Castle was asked to do the first mural. And that was very successful,” she said. “Since I have connections with Spencer Valley, I was asked if I wanted to do a mural and include students. So, I worked it out, talking to the teacher, and arranged for the students to come out for a day of art. When Steve asked me to do this, I called Anastasia, because she has a lot of experience painting murals. This was initially his idea, but because of the owner, we are going to have to find another home for the murals. Steve supplied all the wood and built the mural for us to work on.”
Castle has been creating murals for more than 10 years.
“I told Steve that I would help him create a mural, but at the same time I started thinking I wanted to include locals coming out, no matter the age or skills, but just have a hands-on paint day on the mural,” she said. “That is something that drives me. To do more with the community. I am very happy Annie is doing this one with the Spencer Valley kids. It is always good to involve kids because when they are very young, they will see that they worked on this giant painting. That is the best way to get kids into culture and art.”
Castle said the Santa Isabel gallery is a classic, traditional gallery with fine arts.
“We are very lucky for them letting us do this,” she said. “The community mural we are doing here is portable. They are on large wood panels that can be pulled apart and reassembled somewhere else. It is a moveable mural. It could be in Julian’s town square, a city hall.”
Castle said the mural is all local animals and plants. Dover has lived in Santa Ysabel for 28 years, and said she wanted to make the mural colorful for the students, and short enough not to have to use ladders.
“So, I said, ‘What is close to the ground?’ There are wild flowers in Julian that just pop up in the fields. I see a fox in my yard, so I included wildlife. We have a lot of hummingbirds, butterflies, with our apple orchards, branches of apple trees across the top of this mural. Mainly things that the students here can identify with. They will recognize these things because most of these grow wild here,” she said.
Dover said she and Castle both taught at Spencer Valley last year and knew the students would love being part of the project.
“When they finished, they signed the mural for posterity,” she said. “We may be done with all the painting, but Anastasia and I will continue to work on the mural to do the finishing details until it is completed.”