Like a diver at the Great Barrier Reef, amateur photographer Maral Nigolian couldn’t miss when she visited St. Paul de Vence, the irrrestible 16th century village on the French Riviera that has inspired many an artist. ‘Light is everything in photography,’ says Nigolian, who became obsessed with photography in the last two years. ‘I couldn’t take a bad picture that day.’ Nigolian’s own ‘backyard’ provides enough drama and light to fascinate her literally day by day. From her home on Resolano in Paseo Miramar, she observes the sweep of the coast from downtown Los Angeles to Point Dume, which she has photographed from dawn till dusk. She has chronicled the clear chill of fall when the light illuminates every detail from east to west uncluttered by haze. She has seen fog hovering like an unwelcomed guest at the foot of Santa Monica. She’s seen burning sunsets and the Queen’s Necklace, so named for the string of lights that mark the gentle curve of Santa Monica Bay from Point Dume to Palos Verdes. She’s even seen a purple sea’an ephemera that lasts for just a second as the sun dives into the sea. But the only thing she has not captured is snow on the San Gabriel mountains. ‘I just haven’t seen it when the light is right and when I’ve had my zoom. All the different variables have to be just right,’ Nigolian says. For most of her work, Nigolian uses a Pentax S digital, which she bought so she could use her old Pentax lenses. But, for still lifes, she has found that her little Canon Power Shot S 400, which she’s never without, ‘does very well.’ Nigolian and her husband Lon Kirschenmann and 7-year-old daughter Aran live on the hill in a house that Maral first saw in 1987 when she was living in West L. A. and looking to buy. ‘I looked for six months and saw this home with its wonderful view on the first day I looked, but at the time I thought I wanted a penthouse or condo. But with association dues I realized that I was looking in the million dollar range anyway so I went back to buy the first house.’ Nigolian grew up in Pasadena and graduated from USC with a B. S degree in real estate and marketing. She started her business Astor Wood Financial in 1987, which specializes in municipal bond financing. Some of her Los Angeles projects include the Alameda Corridor and current development plans on Bunker Hill. When not fascinated by the magnet of the sea, Nigolian loves to takes pictures of her garden or the drama that unfolds on walks with her daughter on the beach below.

An open air stairway leads to Room 56 at Hobart Elementary, one in a row of matched doors extending down a outdoor corridor, all marked with a sign ‘Fire Extinguisher Inside’ in red letters. But behind this door a fire bursts with the flashing energy of 30 fifth graders inspired and supported by their teacher Rafe Esquith, who over a 20-year career has recast the way we educate children. The author of ‘There Are No Shortcuts,’ he will share his philosophy and introduce several of his students on Tuesday, May 25, 7:30 p.m. at Village Books. The walls, decorated with university banners from Harvard, Stanford, UCSD and Santa Monica College, speak of goals and triumphs of graduates, who were once in this fifth-grade classroom. The blackboard is crowned with a banner announcing a bold, brave philosophy: ‘There Are No Shortcuts,’ quite a challenge in this era when rigor and stick-to-itiveness have become orphaned words. On this afternoon, a small rock band is rehearsing ‘Hamlet.’ The vocalists quietly sing ‘Paint It Black,’ the Rolling Stones’ 1996 song of disillusionment (‘I see a red door and I want it painted black. No colors any more I want them to turn black.’) while 10-year-old ‘Hamlet’ recites his own despair (‘How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable seem to me all the uses of this world.’) This group of Latino and Asian children are not geniuses, just kids, many from below the poverty line, who are learning to think in a school environment based on responsibility and trust instead of fear. ‘The kids at this school are hungry and angry that they don’t get the same opportunities as other kids,’ says Esquith, who despite being a winner of the Disney National Outstanding Teacher of the Year award and a recipient of constant invitations to teach at more prestigious schools, says his style is perfectly matched to these students. ‘I mine for these unpolished jewels, and I like showing them the way out,’ he says. Hobart is a year-round school with an enrollment of 2,300 students, the majority of whom speak English as their second language. And yet, Esquith’s fifth graders understand and compute mathematics, read Mark Twain and ‘Bury Me at Wounded Knee’ and score in the country’s top 10 percent on standardized tests. Esquith’s technique? No magic, no cash rewards, just a couple of basic tenets. ‘I stick with it, just by being stubborn you get good at stuff,’ says Esquith, 49, who has been at Hobart for 20 years. ‘You stay focused on the task and be the best you can be.’ His students work hard. Many are in the classroom at 6:30 a.m. for math team, stay in at lunch to learn guitar and stay after school, voluntarily. Each year, the Hobart Shakespeareans, as his students are known, perform one of Shakespeare’s plays, which they chose at the beginning of the school year. They have performed for such classical actors and patrons as Sir Ian McKellen and Hal Holbrook. On the day I visited, the students in his class were ‘off track’ but showed up in Esquith’s classroom, some practicing ‘Hamlet’ for an upcoming performance at the Mark Taper Forum, promoting the NEA’s mission to perform Shakespeare in schools throughout the country. Other students were designing their own Mondrian-like paintings; some were working on their own short story, and still others were running laps and climbing stairs to shape up for the upcoming class trip to the Southwest. In reading Esquith’s book ‘There are No Shortcuts,’ you might dismiss this teacher as extraordinary and that’s wonderful, but what about the average person who may not have10 hours a day to dedicate, including Saturdays, or finds Shakespeare daunting? Esquith’s advice is both philosophical and specific. He says that even a teacher who cares about children and learning may find his priorities buried under the exigencies of a large bureaucracy such as LAUSD. ‘The district is so overwhelming that it can crush the human spirit,’ says Esquith, who has had his fair share of tangles with the district and administrators, but learned to pick his battles, and more importantly learned to take short vacations away from the job. ‘Don’t forget who you are. You are talented and you have passions. Don’t ignore the district, but find a passion and do something you passionately love in the classroom, whether you’re a great cook, great gardener. It doesn’t have to be Shakespeare, Shakespeare’s my guy. I have a friend, another teacher, who asked me if he could rewire my classroom, He loves all things electric. That’s his passion.’ (Room 56 is custom-equipped with theatrical track lighting, computer hookups and electronic music outlets.) On the practical side, Esquith advises teachers to manage their classroom from the beginning. ‘If you don’t, nothing will happen.’ But, he adds there are two emotions that can dominate the teacher-student relationship: fear’fear of the teacher, fear of parents, fear of one another’or trust. ‘I give them my trust. I tell them you can screw up on your homework, you can even hit each other, these things are fixable, but break my trust, it’s over.’ Esquith grew up in Los Angeles; his father was a social worker, his mother was the activist in the family. He’s a product of Los Angeles public schools and UCLA but credits his wife Barbara with the good manners, kindness and respect the children show for one another, for him and for visitors. ‘Everything you saw here today was Barbara. She says, the kids don’t have to go to Stanford; what difference does it make if they score 100 percent on a test if they’re not good people?’ Rafe and Barbara raised four adult children, who are launched, albeit not in education. Esquith thought he’d teach math, but happily landed in fifth grade, which he considers, along with first grade, the most important in elementary school. ‘Fifth graders are old enough to do extraordinary things, but because their hormones haven’t kicked in they are really very sweet. The important thing is that this is their first view of the future; they are about to start the toughest years of their life, when American culture bombards them with bad messages constantly. I am trying to give them armor to shield them against what they’re up against.’ According to Esquith the biggest challenge is making sure that his students are not just ordinary, particularly in an educational climate that doesn’t demand very much. ‘Our standards in public schools are incredibly low,’ he says. ‘Successful classrooms are run by teachers who have an unshakable belief that the students can accomplish amazing things and who create the expectation that they will.’

Art History For Kids

By JANET ZAREM Children’s Literature Columnist Rarely has art history been so child-friendly as in Christine Bjork’s 1987 book, ‘Linnea in Monet’s Garden.’ ‘Linnea’ marries the story of a fictional girl to historical and artistic information about Monet and other Impressionists. Still in print, it remains as fresh as the flowers at Giverny themselves. ‘Linnea’ aims its text at readers 8 through 12, though it also boasts numerous adult fans. Fortunately for the picture-book crowd, books which feature younger children and great artists are becoming increasingly popular. Two authors, James Mayhew and Laurence Anholt, have created series in which children take center stage to introduce renowned names in the European artistic canon. Their books include illustrations of famous paintings and sculptures. (Concerned parents, take note: these books are heavily edited for 3- to 7-year-olds’no ear slashing, nervous breakdowns or naked ladies). In James Mayhew’s ‘Katie’ books, a young girl, powered by her imagination, enters one painting after another, enjoying adventures with its subjects, when she and her grandmother tour a museum. In ‘Katie Meets the Impressionists,’ she transports herself into paintings by Monet, Renoir and Degas. In ‘Katie and the Sunflowers,’ she visits Expressionist works by Van Gogh, Gauguin and Cezanne. In ‘Katie and the Mona Lisa,’ she romps through Renaissance paintings by da Vinci, Botticelli, Carpaccio and Raphael. Brief artist biographies follow each story. In his five books, Laurence Anholt takes another approach. The children in these books are historical figures who encountered the artists Anholt presents. Short biographies explain the relationships between the children and the artists. In ‘Leonardo and the Flying Boy,’ one of da Vinci’s apprentice pupils, the boy Zoro, discovers his master is both a brilliant artist and a visionary scientist. Zoro’s flight in Leonardo’s proto-airplane forms the core of the story. In ‘The Magical Garden of Claude Monet,’ the girl Julie longs to visit the country. Her mother accompanies her and her naughty dog, Louey, to Giverny. In real life, Julie Manet was the daughter of Impressionist artist Berthe Morisot. In ‘Camille and the Sunflowers,’ the lad Camille introduces Van Gogh and his famous yellow house through portraits the artist painted of Camille and his family. Brightly colored illustrations leaven the story of Van Gogh’s tragic life, told simply, without unnecessary detail or drama. In ‘Degas and the Little Dancer,’ Anhold frames the story of Marie van Goethen, the young dancer who posed for Degas’ famous sculpture, in a series of flashbacks from the present to Marie’s own time and story. In ‘Picasso and the Girl With a Ponytail,’ Sylvette David meets the still vigorous 73-year-old Picasso and becomes his (platonic) muse and model. Through his changing portraits of Sylvette, children learn about Cubism. Sylvette still lives. Born in 1934, she herself became an artist, now named Lydia Corbett. All these books make viewing art a vital, personal experience for children living in a time dominated by television and computer screens. Look at them and see for yourself.

By ALYSON SENA Palisadian-Post Staff Writer There’s no place like home, for humans and animals alike. Yet, would you expect your lost bichon fris’ to trek along miles of roadway in danger of being hit by a car or eaten by a coyote in the middle of the night to return home? The O’Neil family thinks their dog, Fluffy, did just that. According to Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary, ‘bichon fris’ translates as ‘curly-haired lapdog’ and is described as ‘any of a breed of small sturdy dogs of Mediterranean origin having a thick wavy white coat.’ Clearly, 4-year-old Fluffy is a survivor. On April 6, the O’Neils’who live in the El Medio bluffs neighborhood’took Fluffy to a ‘play date’ at Scott O’Neil’s parents’ house in Santa Monica. Bill and Fay, who have four dogs of their own, live on Euclid and Alta, just south of San Vicente. When Bill returned home that day, he was unaware that Fluffy was visiting and she bolted out the door. He went looking for her all the way down to Montana Ave. without success, at which point he called the family for help. Scott searched futilely for three hours, from San Vicente to Wilshire and from 11th to 18th streets. His wife, Shala, called the police and three animal shelters. ‘They told us not to get our hopes too high,’ she recalls. ‘I was shocked. I was crying all night.’ When Scott returned home around 10 p.m., his wife and daughters, Lauren, 10, and Brittany, 15, were printing 1,000 flyers with Fluffy’s picture. ‘There were a lot of tears in the house,’ he says. ‘One flyer read something like: ’10-year-old desperate to find her dog.” Scott and Shala originally bought Fluffy as a puppy for their daughters, who named her. ‘When she’s clean she looks like a cotton ball,’ he says. The next morning, at about 7:30 a.m., Scott opened the front door to take his daughters to school’and there was Fluffy. ‘She was smelling the plants to see if it was her house,’ he recalls. ‘She was pretty nerved and frazzled. Her face was caked with mud and her body had thorns sticking out. I had to hose her off a fair bit and check her tag to see if it was her.’ The O’Neils believe that Fluffy made her way to 7th Street, down the hill into Santa Monica Canyon to PCH, then west to Temescal Canyon and up Bowdoin and the El Medio area, where they have lived for 13 years. But how could she have known the way home? ‘The only link we can figure is that my wife used to jog along the beach with Fluffy two summers ago,’ says Scott, who’s amazed that Fluffy survived the dangerous trip at night. Shala used to run down Temescal, along the beach and up the spiral stairs by the California Incline to her mother’s house on 6th St. ‘Everybody was amazed with Fluffy’s speed and strength as a puppy,’ Shala says. ‘She was a smart dog from the beginning.’ Lauren says she knew Fluffy would find her way home. Scott thinks that Fluffy is ‘a little wiser’ having survived the ordeal. ‘Several days later, I had the gate open and she didn’t even walk near it.’ Lauren O’Neil, who attends Marquez Elementary, recently starred as Fern in the Theatre Palisades Kids production of ‘Charlotte’s Web The Musical.’ Brittany O’Neil, a Palisades High sophomore, was a Miss Palisades runner-up in this year’s Youth Jennifer Kelley and Greg Young were married on May 1 on Hilton Head Island, South Carolina. The ceremony took place in St. Gregory the Great Church with a reception following at Sea Pines Plantation. The bride is the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Kevin Kelley of Bluffton, South Carolina. The bridegroom is the son of Mr. and Mrs. Douglas Young, currently of Danville, California, and former residents of the area. The bridegroom was born in Santa Monica, graduated from St. Matthew’s, Harvard-Westlake and Vanderbilt University. He is currently employed with Booz-Allen Hamilton in Washington, D.C. The bride grew up in Overland Park, Kansas, and graduated from Notre Dame University. She is employed by Fleishman Hilliard and works in its Washington, D.C. office. The bridesmaids included the bridegroom’s sister, Traci Young, a Palisades resident. Other attendants included childhood friend Rebecca Taylor Hinds as maid of honor, Karen Damaso, Nina Griswold, Kate Nagel and Angela Cooper. The bridegroom was attended by Brian Daily Given, a high school and college friend, as best man and his cousin Michael McNitt, Blair Bright, Charles Summers III, Everette Stubbs and Brian Kelley. The couple honeymooned in the Caribbean and will make their home in Arlington, Virginia.