SUN VALLEY : Children to Help Paint Mural of Local History

A Sun Valley group has begun recruiting children to paint a mural of the community’s history, assisted by an artist who painted a commemorative mural for the 1984 Summer Olympics near the Coliseum.

The painting, which will include panels depicting different eras of Sun Valley’s history, is scheduled to be started April 9, said Jan Liptak, head of the Sun Valley Community Venture Council.

However, the location of the mural, once planned to be on the side of Roscoe Hardware at Sunland Boulevard and San Fernando Road, has been moved to the Al Jal Inc. building on Penrose Street, known locally as the swap meet building. The mural itself would still be on San Fernando Road facing the railroad tracks.

Artist Joe Gonzalez and the mural organizers met with seven boys who were either local junior high or high school students. Liptak said she is still trying to recruit about 10 more teen-age volunteers and is hoping to involve girls in the project.

“We really don’t want the girls to think it’s a male-only activity,” she said.

Gonzalez painted several murals in East Los Angeles before he was hired for $10,000 to complete the Sun Valley job.

The site of the mural was moved because the owner of the building could not pay for the wall to be sandblasted before the painting could start, Liptak said. The sandblasting on the new site is being paid for by Peter Wald, the owner of the building on Penrose Street.

The new site offers two advantages--a larger wall to work with and ivy that will be trimmed back so that it will frame the mural when it is completed.

The Sun Valley Chamber of Commerce is donating sandblasting equipment for the project. Liptak said she is trying to solicit help from other local businesses that could serve lunches for the volunteers as they work on the project.

The painting is expected to take two months of work on weekends and holidays to complete.

The mural will be a history of the Sun Valley area told in five panels from prehistoric times and Native American habitation to the times of Spanish missionaries, stagecoaches and, finally, the 20th Century.