Last year’s massive “Summer of Color” public art installation, which saw colorfully painted panels covering the walls of 157 lifeguard towers from Zuma Beach to Palos Verdes, turned out to be a gift that kept on giving.
After a summer of well-received beach fluorescence, the pop-art panels were removed from the lifeguard towers and given away for the visual and financial benefit of various communities.
In Hermosa, “Summer of Color” panels were auctioned off to raise $15,500 for the nonprofit Portraits of Hope organization that launched the project, $9,300 for the Hermosa Beach Education Foundation, which raises money for the city’s public schools, and $6,200 for the Hermosa Arts Foundation.
“There were kids running around, free food and wine. It was a festive environment,” said Diana Allen of an auction she spearheaded in February. “We set the panels up like an art gallery in the Community Center.”
Families from across the South Bay and beyond came to bid on the panels.
Additional panels were given to school campuses throughout the beach cities, and to organizations such as the Hermosa Beach Historical Society, Hermosa Beach Little League and the Jimmy Miller Memorial Foundation, which supports the healing of mental and physical illness through surfing and ocean related activities.
Allen and Janie Hindle of the Hermosa Beach Education Foundation formed some of the panels, filled with “flowers, fish and various abstract lines and doodles,” into a mural that overlooks the Hermosa Valley School playground from its spot high on a tall fence. Plans call for a similar mural at Hermosa View School, the city’s other public school campus.
In December, Allen and her son Christopher had recruited more than 200 people from Hermosa and Manhattan to paint the lifeguard towers back to their original blue color. She recruited Girl Scout and Boy Scout troops and Hermosa school families, while he gathered up 100 Mira Costa High School students.
“We painted 25 lifeguard towers in two hours that morning,” Diana Allen said.
“Summer of Color” was launched by brothers Ed and Bernie Massey as part of the nonprofit Portraits of Hope, which they founded in 1995.
The organization was developed as a creative therapy program for seriously ill and physically disabled children, then was expanded to include a wide range of children and adults working with schools, hospitals and other community institutions in “high-profile, motivational art, education, and creative therapy projects which transform public landscapes.”
Portraits of Hope projects have focused on blimps, buildings, tugboats, airplanes and NASCAR racecars. Current projects include Garden in Transit in New York City and the Long Beach Airport Control Tower Project.
Tens of thousands of children and adults across the U.S. have been involved in organization activities.
