Members of Celebrate Los Osos, the Los Osos Chamber of Commerce celebrated the completed restoration of the La Cañada de Los Osos mural. Photos by Dean Sullivan
A9-foot bear was spotted in Los Osos to the cheers of those gathered to see it.
About 40 people showed up for a ribbon cutting and celebration of the completions of the La Cañada de Los Osos mural on the side of a building located at the corner of LOVR and 10th Street
Since 1989, the La Cañada de Los Osos mural, on the streetside of the Bay Osos Village Center, has stood as a marker of the first European expedition into Alta California (led by Gaspar de Portolá in 1769). Historically, our valley was named “ravine of the bears” because of the soldiers’ memorable encounters here with the California grizzly. Janice Sharman-Hand designed the original work that was painted by local children at the time.
“By the 2020s the paint had begun to peel, but driving by at 35 mph you may not have noticed,” said Pandora Karner-Nash, president of Celebrate Los Osos (CLO), a community benefit non-profit that was the idea and financial support behind the project. “To see it today, all the work that went it to it and the detail — this is spectacular.”
To restore the mural, the building had to first be repaired. A portion of the mural had originally been painted on wooden panels that had suffered from time and the elements. The wood was removed and a new layer of Quikrete was applied on the upper portion of the building. Weeds, old plant materials and a dying tree were removed as well to make way for the platform required for scaffolding.”
Artist Manuel Cruz, of Pittsburgh, CA, spent close to six weeks working on the mural. He is a realist painter by trade and applied more of that style to the makeover. After cleaning, applying an undercoat and primer, he sketched the original mural from old photographs.
“I love Janice Sharman-Hand’s design and layout — it’s more whimsical. I brought in a little more realism such as the bear’s fur. I was scared by the bears,” Cruz said with a laugh. “I put them on a diet — I chiseled them. That was a challenge. I added a lot of grass and the giant poppies.
“Mural makeovers are far and few for me, but I love doing them. It just brings things back to life and makes people happy. Anything I do in my career is to make people happy and make them happy.”
Cruz said the detailed birds flying near the top of the mural were the most difficult to paint. It’s not that he finds avians a hard subject matter to paint, but that the space in that area is stucco.
“There was a lot of prep work,” Cruz said. “The hardest part was the stucco; It’s like painting on cottage cheese. The birds took six hours each.”
The total cost for the mural artist, materials, equipment and paint came to about $21,500. A grant paid for $2,500, and the remaining amount was donated by community members and local businesses.
“We asked the community, and they responded generously,” Nash-Karner said. “It is just who we are. Sometimes it takes rolling up our sleeves and doing some labor, and sometimes it takes money, but the community always responds. They are so wonderful.”
CLO is looking at updating the town’s other murals and exploring new projects including mini murals. Los Osos has two additional murals by Sharman-Hand and one done by Barbara Rosenthal, which is located at Los Osos Rexall Drug and Gift at 989 Los Osos Valley Road.
“Supporting public murals is important because they offer cultural, social, and economic value to communities by enriching the physical environment, fostering social connection, and honoring local history,” Nash-Karner said/
“Unlike art in museums or galleries, public murals are freely accessible to everyone, regardless of socioeconomic status or background, democratizing the art experience. They serve as educational tools and create a deeper awareness by community-centric storytelling”.
Janice Sharman – Hand
Sharman-Hand currently lives in Eureka, California and continues to be an active artist, painting with watercolor, reflecting her love for nature. She no longer paints murals.
Under Janice’s guidance and using the markings of the basic scene she created in August of 1989, about 150 children in the community carefully filled in the outlines on the wall. Janice then continued the same philosophy and technique of public art via public participation for the next two historical murals, “Chumash Bear Dance Community Mural,” at the intersection of 9th Street and Los Olivos Avenue, and “Portola’s Sacred Expedition Community Mural,” at the intersection of Los Osos Valley Road and 9th Street.
