Artists young and old paint history while re


Emerald green trees and Viennese red stained glass windows bleached into pastels by years of baking in the sun. Burnt sienna sand dunes marred by gang tags and graffiti. Elephant gray chunks of sidewalk and flaking lavender paint over raw concrete. Cobalt blue waves blackened by mildew.The mural at West Sunset Park once painted the colorful history of a neighborhood built on sand dunes and often characterized by weary Doelger row houses under a blanket of monochromatic fog.Walking the half block of the mural takes you time traveling: The mural tells the Sunset story, from the first oceanic amoeba to the Ohlone Indians to the Spanish Conquistadors, weaving around the Conservatory of Music, through Carville, under [url=http://www.fashionshoes.us.com/gold-patent-leather-ambertina-bejeweled-140m... Patent leather Ambertina Bejeweled 140mm the Doggie Diner head and back out to sea with the surfers.After 25 years of sea air, heavy fog, strong winds and graffiti, the Sunset's Ortega Street landmark had few images left undamaged.Today, thanks to the combined efforts of community groups, volunteers and Recreation and Parks, "The History of the Sunset District" mural is sporting a face lift that might make the Painted Ladies of San Francisco jealous."The mural is a really nice marker about that section of the city and about the history of the Sunset District," said Jason Gilmore, the muralist in charge of the $23,000 restoration. Gilmore works under the auspices of Precita Eyes, a San Francisco mural arts center that trains muralists, restores murals and gives tours of Mission District murals. "You can tell it was done in the '70s, so it's a marker of that era as well."When Henry Sultan read in a ChronicleWatch item that the Sunset mural had been defaced by graffiti earlier this year, the retired paint seller decided to get back into action. Sultan created the mural in 1979, and now calls it a "petroglyph from the past."He got in touch with the San Francisco Arts Commission, Precita Eyes Mural Center and the city's Recreation and Parks Department, and together they devised a plan to save the mural.Sultan's primary motivation for painting the mural was to work big."The real fun of mural painting is being able to move around," he says, and this project offered him a 200 foot long canvas that starts out just 6 inches high and ends up about 10 feet tall. Working big also meant working with other artists."There isn't really a particular style that the mural is done in," said Sultan. "It's a style that you come up with when you have a bunch of different people working together. You just accommodate each other."Brushed with large strokes and uneven lines, the mural seems simple, almost childlike, at first glance. Emperor Norton stands at an awkward angle. An air raid warden is as tall as a building. A piece of green seems stuck to a rabbit's mouth. But as the images flow into each other, the mural shows a [url=http://www.fashionshoes.us.com/black-strass-anna-120mm-replica.html]Black Strass Anna 120mm planned concert of images."I wanted to show the history of a district that is always overlooked and less glamorous than others in the city," said Sultan, who moved to the Sunset with his family in 1946 and witnessed dramatic changes in the area. "It was pretty much unpopulated sand dunes until after World War II, when the Doelger Construction Company built it into what it is now, almost overnight."Ordinarily when a mural on park property has been damaged, Joe Padilla and his crew from the Rec and Park paint shop will just paint over the graffiti tag or scrape off the flaking paint. While they aren't allowed to paint over the whole mural, Padilla said there aren't any special procedures for the treatment of compromised murals."Jason asked us to be gentle," said Padilla. He and his crew whited out the graffiti, scraped off all the loose pieces, then sealed and stabilized what they could. Padilla and Gilmore thought they would lose over 60 percent of the mural, but were able to save close to 70 percent. That left still more blank spots with details worn away by time. Working with slides from the 1979 unveiling, original sketches and Sultan's memory, the artists tried to restore the original artwork as closely as possible.Gilmore would like the West Sunset mural restoration to become a model for future efforts to save art on park property."We should have a regular protocol. If a mural is damaged, (Rec and Park) can contact us first," said Gilmore. "We'll come out and survey the damage and talk to Joe and his crew about how to proceed. If they don't have the time, maybe the city can fund us to do it."Shirley Dang lives close to the mural and wanted to help bring its vibrant colors and distinctive images back to life."I grew up in Chinatown, and then I moved out here just before they started painting the mural in 1979," said Dang, an X ray technician. "I was very sad to see it destroyed by graffiti."Even though she had never painted before, Dang decided to lift a brush to help when she heard about the restoration project.