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HEATHER HILL
THE MID-COUNTY MEMO
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| Muralist Larry Kangas, with a recently innovated technique, painted this first mural of its kind in Oregon. Close examination reveals familiar faces in the mural. |
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| From stolid Samurai to mythical Korean horse and rider in flight, the artistic images were compiled by students, teachers, administrators and adult volunteers to adorn three bare walls at the east end of Parkrose High School Community Center. At 1,600 sq. ft., the Parkrose High School mural is composed of fabric as a base and features equine throughout history as its theme. |
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| The Parkrose High School mascot, the bronco, fittingly ends the story told on the three-panel mural on the east side of the high school. |
| MEMO PHOTOS: TIM CURRAN |
In contrast to the cave dwellers who painted with pulverized stone on stone, muralist Larry Kangas employed a technique only a few decades old for the PHS exterior wall painting. Kangas started with strips of Pellon, a nonwoven synthetic textile that resists warping, which he lacquered with thin layers of gel to achieve a plastic texture before applying exterior-rated acrylic paint and finalizing with a UV coating to prevent the fading effects of light. Kangas then affixed the Pellon strips to the cornice with the help of a rental scissor lift, more gel and a squeegee.
Generally history, geography, literature and art occupy separate classrooms, but the mural unites these disciplines. The frieze covers three panels with a gradual progression that reveals a visual history of horses and their roles with people. The first face leaves the caves of Lascaux by Egyptian chariot, which clods up to a similar Assyrian scene before entering historical legends with the Trojan Horse and St. George slaying the dragon.
The subsequent image, the Bayeux tapestry, depicts the birth of Britain in the Battle of Hastings in 1066 when the French Normans defeated the English Saxons. The context includes contradictions, tempting curiosity.
A depiction of bronze statuary from Africa succeeds the Bayeux tapestry. Bronze is a copper alloy, the properties of which students learn in their science classes, and the uses for which they discover in art. The juxtaposition of the mural’s renditions — from the African bronze to a Chinese sage to an affectionate Indian couple to a resplendent Renaissance Italian to a stolid Samurai to a mythical Korean horse and rider in flight — denotes the contrasting styles and techniques of cultures across eras.
The mural’s longest wall begins with a woodcut of a polo match in Rajastan, India — the painting’s first example of sporting horses. Then Marco Polo struts by, uniting East to West, followed by George Washington, redefining what West means. The great generals march on. Napoleon rears up his horse, followed by Simon Bolivar, who liberated much of South America from colonial rule.
Not everyone benefited from global expansion, as is clear as the mural edges closer to home. Two groups journey in the shadow of the Rocky Mountains — one, a Native American family wrapped in skins on a somber progression, the other a covered wagon conveying homesteaders heading west on the Oregon Trail. These scenes flow into a depiction of the Buffalo Soldiers, so named by the Cheyenne tribe they fought.
As the visual history lesson progresses through time and space, its purview grows narrower, closer, within walking distance. This mural overlooks land once part of Rossi farm, honored by an agrarian scene, the original photo for which was shot about 60 years ago from what is now the high school parking lot. The rendering of another snapshot follows, a man and woman in formal Mexican costume riding in a procession, not in Mexico but, as Kangas disclosed, in the Fourth of July parade in Molalla.
Rounding to the final wall, a Cossack sits at attention on his horse representing Russia and ending the history lesson. The next image depicts modern childhood’s first equestrian encounter — on the carousel. Machines having replaced animals in most practical functions, horses remain central figures in sport and ceremony, evidenced in the second to last image of a rodeo and in the PHS mascot, the bronco.
In the final frame, a horse without a rider gallops on an ethereal background. Kangas described it as “whatever your imagination is...taking off into the future.” When I agreed with that assessment, he said, “Then I was successful.”
Joanne Oleksiak, head of community connections at PHS, was successful in her work to bring the mural about. Without Oleksiak the mural would not exist.
Art, while creating beauty, is a messy process — the paint and gel not nearly as sticky as the logistics. Though popularly touted as the product of spontaneous inspiration, art traditionally comes on commission with terms and timelines. Assigned by the Oregon State Service Corp of Americorps to enrich the high school campus as a community center, Oleksiak initially connected students with volunteer community service projects, but she and others believed the school itself warranted aid. She heard that a parent once approached Kangas about painting a mural at the school. Familiar with the city’s public art grants, Oleksiak solicited support for an artistic revitalization project that would integrate students with the community.
PHS students selected the images for the mural, intending to capture the spirit of the school mascot and the diversity of the community. When Oleksiak proposed the mural to community groups, they submitted suggestions with their approval. After a few alterations, the mural gained community backing, the consent of the school board and, most essentially, the city’s endorsement in the grant to fund it.
Students, teachers and community members coalesced around the mural. Oleksiak observed that introducing something as celebratory as the mural overshadowed the contentious issues that neighborhood groups tend to spar over, uniting the committees with their common interest in local history. When Kangas began work, Oleksiak invited public observance. And community members came, some of whom Kangas recruited to help.
“As community coordinator I’m always surprised when people come in to do the hardest jobs and then just love it because they want to make a contribution,” Oleksiak said on the school lawn with the completed mural over her shoulder. “It says something about this project that so many people wanted to be involved.”
The mural now enters a new stage. Parkrose art teacher Bev Cordova is crafting an art-history curriculum utilizing the mural as a teaching component to highlight technique. History classes can also draw from its references. In itself, the mural project demonstrates the synergy necessary to propel civilization forward. The materials, cooperation, sacrifice and talent, merged into a specific time and place, all contribute to what art is. School gives kids the know-how to implement their ideas and achieve their dreams. Teaching how to accomplish them, how to negotiate the obstacles and brave the paperwork, is what the school — and the mural — encapsulates.
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