School board paid $22,000 for lead abatement service
JOHN MUIR ELEMENTARY The laughter of children, the brightness of an afternoon sun and the gaze of environmentalist John Muir are all gone.
They were all elements of a mural that livened up a wall of John Muir Elementary School for the past five years, only to be removed over the winter break after testing positive for lead. Now, the work’s artist contends that the lead testing was incorrect and the district may have gotten duped out of $22,000.
Late last year, a testing agency reportedly identified lead in the paint used on a mural entitled “The Growing Tree” that depicts children climbing a tree and playing under the sun as Muir looks on. Roughly 15 feet tall and 20 feet wide, the mural was painted onto a wall directly across from the administration building at the elementary school in 2001.
However, there is almost no commercial lead paint still sold in stores, and there was no lead in the paint used for the mural, according to Chris Hero, the well-known Venice-based artist who created it.
Leslie Inman, a saleswoman with Culver City-based Nova Color, which produced the paint used for “The Growing Tree,” confirmed that none of their products contain lead.
While Hero is upset that school district officials did not notify him about the removal of his work beforehand, he is more concerned that the district might have unnecessarily paid for a lead abatement project when there was no lead to be abated.
On Tuesday, district officials did not provide any additional information on the circumstances of the lead testing or the subsequent removal of the mural.
State and federal law both require that building owners notify the creators of building art before removing the art in question, according to Hero. Had he been notified about the testing agency’s findings, Hero said he would have been able to save the art-work.
On Tuesday, Hero said he was not going to pursue legal action against the district about the removal of the mural, but rather, he was more concerned that the district wasted money that could’ve been used for educational purposes.
“My kids still go to Santa Monica schools and I have no interest in using the school district’s resources,” said Hero. “Those are resources that should’ve gone to the kids.”
The school board awarded a $22,000 bid to Karcher Environmental in November for lead abatement services at John Muir. Karcher Environmental was not the agency that conducted the initial test.
Hero was commissioned by the school to paint the mural when his daughter was a student at John Muir Elementary School. It took the SMC art professor a few days to complete the project in the summer of 2001 with the help of a few students.
The eradicated mural was the first and only one Hero painted in Los Angeles.
“I did it because my daughter was at the school and the principal at the time asked me,” Hero said. “There was a solid gray wall [before] that was very prison-like.
“It made it more homely.”
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on January 31, 2007. Read the original PDF.