Editor’s Note: A recent thread on Facebook suggests that the large mural on the west side of Smith Robinson Gym might be painted over and that its history is lost. A quick search of Healdsburg Tribune archives discovered the following article, from February 1989.
Principal Tait Danhousen and District Supervisor Chris Vanden Heuvel both say there are no plans to paint over or otherwise change this artwork at the Healdsburg High School campus.
By Paula Lombardi
Art will combine with local history on a huge scale in the coming weeks when artist Dan Lopez begins his six-panel heritage mural on the outside walls of Smith Robinson Gymnasium.
A resource specialist with the Migrant Education Program in local schools this year, the longtime artist will present the Healdsburg area’s history, from the large Pomo Indian population which made its home here, through the Mexican reign and the coming of the missionaries, to the founding of the City of Healdsburg and its subsequent growth, including the area’s agricultural history, to modem times.
Each of the six panels depicting this history will be approximately 30 feet high and 15 feet wide. The designs will be painted on a large-scale by Lopez, students at the high school and “any member of the community who’s interested in getting involved,” says the artist.
The huge mural project for the high school got the go-ahead from the school trustees earlier this month. Because Lopez’s work is being funded through Migrant Education, the project will only cost the local school district the price of the paint.
Lopez, who is responsible for the wall murals in the Mexican Village at the Sonoma County Fairgrounds, as well as others around the county, has spent months researching the area’s history to give the upcoming mural appropriate authenticity, “along with some artistic license.”
While Lopez plans to spend most of his time on the mural with migrant education students, he is hoping that the community as a whole will want to get involved. “The greatest effort you can make is to accomplish something beautiful in life,” says the artist. “The mural is a way that we, as a collective society, can leave something beautiful behind.”
The theme behind the six panels of the mural, he says, is to show that individuals and various cultures played a unique and important role in the development of the Healdsburg area. And the characters that grace the panels are reflections of this. In addition to Pomo Indians, there are gold miners and fur trappers, Mexican cowboys and Chinese railroad laborers.
The first panel is dedicated to the Pomo Indians and Lopez is hoping to locate some Pomo descendants to help paint that part of the mural. According to Lopez’s research, Pomos numbered in the thousands in this area before epidemics decimated the population. The second panel reflects the Mexican period, from gauchos to missionaries. City founder Harmon Heald figures prominently in the third mural, along with the store he built on what is now Healdsburg Avenue, gold miners and fur trappers.
The fourth panel features an 1857 map of Healdsburg; the fifth, field workers and local agriculture; and sixth, education, with the city’s schools surrounding students of various ethnic backgrounds. Sketches for the last three murals are as yet not complete, but all six of the panels are set against a backdrop of the rolling hills surrounding Healdsburg. A circle at the top of each contains a symbol of some sort which best depicts the spirit of the times.
In the Pomo panel, a Shaman is shown, while a mission is highlighted in the second and a gold miner in the third. “I wanted each panel to have its own sense of dignity,” says Lopez, “but without any moral, social or political comments.”
The mural will be painted with a thick, high-quality paint, explains Lopez, and the gymnasium wall was selected for its protection from constant, strong sunlight. With these two factors involved, the mural should lead a relatively long life on the Smith Robinson walls.
Lopez encourages anyone interested in volunteering on the mural project to contact him at HHS, 431-3420. “I’m hoping to raise a positive environment through art,” says Lopez. His mural, he adds, strives to depict individuals of different cultures contributing to the Healdsburg area and helping shape it into how we see it today. “I hope it shows that we’re all beautiful, that we’re all contributors.”
From Healdsburg Tribune, Enterprise and Scimitar, Number 39, 24 February 1989
