| September 29, 2005
Artful Community History Project Led by
Del Mar's Betsy Schulz
By Lee Schoenbart
For one of Del Mar's most popular artists, Betsy
Schulz thrives on community-involved public art projects. Even if
it's the community next door - Solana Beach.
When teased about "belonging to" and
being Del Mar's "treasure," Schulz quipped, "When
you do public art, you do public art, wherever the public is."
This time the public art is Schulz's design "Solana
Beach Coastal Rail Trail Arches," for which her entry won approval from the city more
than two years ago.
Instead of a broad electric sign across Highway
101 like the city of Encinitas, Schulz created a pair of gateway
monument arches to be placed at the entrance of the coast rail trail
at Highway 101 and Via de la Valle - the south end of Solana Beach.
The first arch is 13 feet wide and the second is nine feet wide,
both spanning with width of the trail mouth.
On Sept. 25, Barabara Hume, Shannon Applegate,
Christine Benniston, Irene De Watteville and Schulz - among the
best local tile artists in the community – volunteered their
time and talents to host a family tile-making party on the grassy
area at Fletcher Cove. They taught anyone and everyone in Solana
Beach who wanted to participate how to make fossil, leaf, quote
and word tiles for the arches.
Schulz said, "Each monument consists of two
arches. The arches welcome visitors to Solana Beach and onto the
coastal rail trail.
"The supporting columns of the arches will
be covered with rounded beach rocks and fossils representing the
beach cliffs.
"The earthy colors at the base of the columns
will gradually becoming brighte as they reach the top, representing
the progression of Solana Beach history. The yellows and reds at
the top reflect the vibrancy of present-day Solana Beach.
"All this imagery - fossils, shells, birds,
fish, farming, small signs, word tiles, historical tiles, as well
as metal and ceramic artifacts – will artistically tell the
Solana Beach history," she said.
The two arches will be supported by four four-sided
concrete columns laden with the community-made tiles depicting thousands
of years of history - a judicious undertaking for Schulz who referred
to the project as "a creative timeline."
It will take thousands of tiles of every shape
and size to complete the project by early next year.
The artist said Native Americans came down from
the mountains and spent the winter months hunting small game and
fishing as early as 8,500 years ago, and that the first of the eight
panels would feature "part history and a lot of nature."
Filling the panels will be depictions of the Spanish
who came through and established the missions and their influence
on the region, the railroad of the 1880s, the beginnings of Highway
101 in 1919, the early 1920s when George Jones sold Lockwood Mesa
to developer Ed Fletcher and the mid-1960s during the building of
Interstate 5.
Comparing this project to the mix-media mosaic
in front of the Del Mar branch library, Schulz said, "This
one is more ambitious because it's like a history lesson."
Schulz is seeking donations for the project -
physical pieces of history as well as financial.
Donations of historic metal and ceramic items
from the 1800s and 1900s and Solana Beach stories and photos are
welcome. For $300, Schulz will design a personalized Donor Tile
up to 30 characters including spaces. The donor tiles will help
offset costs incurred by Schulz and surpassed by the city's budget
for the project.
The donations would be made payable to the Solana
Beach Civic and Historical Society and earmarked for the project.
The funds would then be administered for materials as they are needed.
For a schedule of upcoming tile-making and volunteer
opportunities to complete the arches, contact Schulz at betsy@adesigngarden.com.
To contact the historical society treasurer, call
(858) 755-4088.
To learn more, visit Schulz's Web site at www.adesigngarden.com.
Lee Schoenbart is the former North Coast community
news editor with the San Diego Union-Tribune. The above article
published in the Rancho Santa Fe Review, Del Mar Village Voice and
Carmel Valley News where Lee occasionally freelances. Lee is a realtor
with Prudential California Realty in Mission Hills.
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