Historical Murals at Canyon Elementary

‘A picture is worth a thousand words,’ goes an old clich’. If that’s the case, about 4,000 words have hit the walls of Canyon Elementary, via four new murals reflecting the venerable Santa Monica school’s history. The murals enjoyed something of an inaugural party last Friday evening at Canyon’s Back to School Picnic, where about 200 parents and children shared meals on the schoolyard. Among the picnicking parents was Doug Suisman, who, with Pacific Palisades historian Randy Young, worked on the murals. Suisman selected four images from Young’s archival photos and then printed them onto vinyl mesh that now adorn the exterior walls of various school buildings. The murals were part of a larger parent-teacher initiative to revitalize the school, which has been repainted the past six months. History is what Suisman wanted to express with these vintage photographic images. ‘This school is so deeply connected to the Canyon,’ said Suisman, who lives in Santa Monica Canyon with his wife, Moye Thompson, and their kids, Claire, 9, and Ted, 7 (both Canyon students). ‘There are very few schools in L.A. that have that kind of history, and that’s part of what makes Canyon Elementary special.’ The Palisadian-Post took a walking tour with Young, who discussed each individual mural. The image outside the school, taken from a 1900 postcard, shows the original schoolhouse, established in 1894, at its original Sycamore Road location. ‘You can see it was a bucolic scene,’ said Young, a Rustic Canyon resident and a founding member of the Pacific Palisades Historical Society. In 1912, Canyon Elementary moved to its present location, where an annual fiesta, depicted on a second mural inside the school premises, has been held since 1934. Young pointed out how the background echoes the mid-century homes perched along West Channel Road on the hill along the view to the north. One home, with its Spanish-flavored, pantile-interlaced roof, once belonged to MGM art director Cedric Gibbons and his wife, pioneer Latina actress Dolores del Rio. A third mural depicts an early 20th-century classroom of two dozen kids and instructors, including Latina assistant teachers. The turn-of-the-20th-century schoolhouse in the photo was transplanted to the school grounds in the late 1980s, when parents banded together and ‘paid for this building to be moved and converted into a library,’ Young said. ‘The whole community came together to adopt this. I think it’s a wonderful touchstone.’ The final mural, across the school grounds, depicts a student with her kitten, circa 1954. A note lists Canyon teachers ‘Mrs. Kenney’ and ‘Mrs. Stoker.’ ‘Our idea is to rotate them,’ Suisman said of his quartet of illustrated banners. ‘There’ll be more. They only last a few years on vinyl mesh. So this will become a rotating gallery over time.’ At Saturday’s picnic, the school’s new principal, Joyce Dara, served water and lemonade to kids while chatting with parents Marie Reimers, Lisa Spence and Kim Holland, all of whom welcomed the new murals.   ’It’s interesting timing [for the murals] as we’re currently rewriting the school charter,’ Dara said. ‘Every five years, we have to rewrite the charter and set new goals. It’s a reflective process for us.’ ‘It’s a foot in the past and the present,’ Holland said. ‘I think that’s what learning is about.’