Auburn Recreation officials seek more area artists as colorful murals begin to adorn Regional Park

Cindy Cranney stood on a footstool touching up flowers and adding "more native things" to her mural on a storage shed along Richardson Drive at Regional Park, smiling and focused. Just a few steps up the street, Brooklynne Helmer's wall of orange California poppies in a field of green stood out. Much further in, the pump house that feeds every sprinkler in the park still smelled of paint, its mural having just been completed. Graffiti remained on the other side of that same pump house, and its day surely will come. Auburn resident Scott Holbrook recalled the chalk designs drawn by local businesswomen Andrea Sylvester, Jessie Faye and Jillian Chandler that "looked so cool" at Recreation Park in April (and featured in the Auburn Journal) and thought Regional Park could use a similar artists' touch "on some of these ugly surfaces," meaning walls, bathrooms and little electric boxes. Word was spread on Facebook, and artists have answered, "just local people that wanted to make the park look better," Holbrook said. The storage shed and pump house sides brought the number of murals to five. Holbrook, an Auburn Area Recreation and Parks District board member and "purveyor of fun," was accompanied by District Administrator Kahl Muscott and Recreation Services Manager Mark Brunner on a walk through the park last Thursday. They said there are many more "surfaces" that could use an artist's personal touch. "We're focusing on Regional, but if someone contacts us, we'll work with them," Muscott said. "It's a wonderful way to give back to the community." There were several sets of hands on the pump house mural, which featured the Foresthill Bridge. "It's kind of obvious, it's the best thing in the area," said April Pay of the community engagement program Placer Creates and one of seven artists on the mural, including Wendy Brodnick, Annie Harris, Judy Isaman, Victoria Pacheco, Khristy Valech and Megan West. It took five days to complete the mural, which includes small "Notes of Hope" on the bridge and a tiny bulldozer, its driver waving a hand. That bulldozer driver is Les Dawes, who West said rolled by in his wheelchair each day as the artists painted. They learned Dawes helped build the original bridge, so they honored him with a presence in the mural. "I see these murals, and it gets me thinking, makes me feel good," Holbrook said. "It creates emotion in people when they walk by." Cranney put about six hours into her mural and still planned to add California quail, flowers and birds, saying, "I like color. It's been fun." Helmer, who lives in Roseville and works in Auburn, chose orange poppies because, "It's distinct in this area and just the color scheme – bright orange." She was wowed by Kaitlin Kahn's impressive mural of geese on the old pump house mere feet from the new pump house. "The geese near the pump house mural: Holy smokes! It's so cool," Helmer said. "The mural artists are really innovative in the way they do things. There are a lot of very talented artists that have done a lot of great murals out here." That includes Brooke Mathews, who adorned a side of a bathroom smack dab in the middle of Regional Park's disc golf course with black and white birds. Brunner, Holbrook and Muscott were on alert following a warning from a nearby player whose disc missed the group and flew instead through the open bathroom door. "We have a ton of surfaces," Holbrook said. "It's pretty much volunteers. We're looking for more volunteers."