Painting up history

Even Costa Mesa Historical Society administrator Mary Ellen Goddard learned something new about the city’s origins when she was doing research for the painting of a mural near Fairview Park.

The mural, painted on a 35-foot cinder block wall adjacent to the fire station on Placentia Avenue, chronicles the history of Fairview Park since its first known inhabitants, and one item in particular piqued Goddard’s attention: an oil derrick.

She opened up a large, yellowed map of the area from 1946 to find that there were a couple of registered oil wells smack in the middle of what today is park land.

A group of kids from MICA, a Costa Mesa after school program, got together with project director Peggy Gardner to put some finishing touches on the painting Saturday morning.

Although it’s sometimes hard to manage a staff of teenage painters, some with little artistic experience, Gardner is happy to have the help.

“There’s a lot of area to cover. I’m not a youngster any more so I don’t squat down or go up on the stools to do these things, so the kids enjoy doing them,” Gardner said.

The mural is divided into six sections dating back thousands of years to when Fairview Park was part of the Indian village of Lukup, according to city historians.

The first and most detailed panel, painted in acrylic earth tones, shows a woman gathering food by the river while a man carries a deer carcass home on his back.

It follows the area as it transformed into a herding ground, oil operations sprouted up, corn and beans were farmed and finally a natural park was created with a walking paths and a model train station.

“The historical preservation committee felt like this was something nice for the community to learn about Fairview Park. It wasn’t always a park for flying kites and a model train station,” said Costa Mesa Recreation Supervisor Lisa McPherson.

The project was a collaborative effort between the Costa Mesa Historical Society, the Costa Mesa Historical Preservation Committee and the city’s recreation department. It has been a few years in the works, but in the past few months the organizers began doing serious research and planning.

Through working on the painting, the kids learn artistic skills like how to shade figures to give them perspective, Gardner said.

She also tells her workers some historical information when she can.

Gardner is no stranger to teaching kids art, having raised six children of her own and having taught each of them to sketch. She laid out the design for the mural on a 10-foot strip of butcher paper so that the kids could get an idea of what she was going for.

The mural can be seen traveling north on Placentia Avenue right after passing the fire station on the right side of the road, across from Estancia High School.

ALAN BLANK may be reached at (714) 966-4623 or at alan.blank@latimes.com.