Teacher Wants Simi High to Snag Western Folk Art

Simi Valley High School art teacher Bruce Kanegai loves folk-art monuments such as Grandma Prisby’s Bottle Village in Simi and Simon Rodia’s Watts Towers.

So when he read about 20 concrete, Western folk-art statues being threatened by the expansion of the Burbank Airport, Kanegai had to see the pieces for himself. Once he saw them, he had to have them--at least he wanted his school to have them.

And, if the Simi Valley Board of Education and the children of trapper-turned-sculptor John Ehn agree, Kanegai may get his way.

Kanegai said he wants to make the spacious nature-and-agriculture area on the Simi High campus a permanent home for the statues and collection of Western artifacts from the Old Trappers Lodge in Sun Valley.

“It would be a unique and extraordinary experience for any school to have a collection like this,” Kanegai said. “Here the works would be preserved, protected and available for our students and the whole community to enjoy and study.”

For more than 40 years, Ehn’s collection has been a little-noticed cultural oasis in Sun Valley. Ehn, a Michigan trapper who opened his motel in 1941 and began sculpting 10 years later, carved towering concrete pieces that depicted familiar Western characters.

His collection also includes a “Boot Hill” with humorously inscribed tombstones and hundreds of artifacts from the Old West.

In 1981, the collection was designated a state historical landmark and became one of 10 California folk-art environments so honored.

Last month, the Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport Authority voted to exercise an option to buy the motel property. The decision forced about 350 people and the art collection to start looking for new homes.

Ehn’s heirs are particular about a new site for their father’s collection, said Rosemary Farish, Ehn’s daughter, who operates the Sun Valley motel. So far, she has discussed the collection with two cultural-preservation societies and the Los Angeles Zoo.

But, even with the competition, Farish said, Simi High has a good chance of getting the Ehn works. Several hurdles must be crossed, however.

Unanimous Vote Needed

First, Ehn’s heirs, who act as trustees of the estate, must unanimously vote to donate the collection to Simi High. Two of Ehn’s four children already are in favor of the idea, Farish said.

Next, the Simi Valley school board must approve. Board members are investigating the collection and what its possible donation would entail, according to district spokeswoman Pamela Spencer.

If both sides agree, and their lawyers iron out the details, Kanegai has some big plans for the works.

The statues and Boot Hill would be placed in the school’s nature area, which contains vegetation indigenous to California.

Teachers in the art, science and agriculture departments plan to develop lessons that would include the Ehn works. And some Simi High students would be trained as docents to conduct tours and lecture about the collection.