Enthusiasm for beautifying our school was beginning to grow with each new mural. At the same time budget cuts in the school district made it impossible to pay me to teach art. The joy of teaching those children art and seeing their enthusiasm and progress made it obvious that I had to volunteer at least one day a week to continue the art program I had worked so hard to establish for two years. To augment their experience we sought a grant to continue painting murals and were awarded another beautification grant from the city of Los Angeles. This time it was specifically for doing a number of murals and someone picked the lucky number 7 out of a hat! That was quite a challenge. Beginning in March we worked around rain, heat and wind to try to paint on our murals one day a week. The goal was to have as many children as possible participate in the project to "make it their own".
The first two murals were about the history of immigration in the U.S.A. beginning with the pilgrims and moving on through 400 years ending with looking to the future. It was done on two walls of adjoining buildings that are visible to parents when they arrive to pick up their children at the garden gate. One of the fun challenges was to incorporate the pipes that were left on the walls after a retrofitting into the picture. We even had to have an art history lesson about Diego Rivera while working on the one below!
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