Photograph by Jacqueline Ramseyer

Perseverance: Sherry Rodriguez sits next to the tile mural that was recently rehung at Willow Glen Elementary School after it was remodeled. The mural currently hangs outside the kindergarten area of the school, on Minnesota Avenue.




Veteran mural-maker succeeds in getting elementary school art rehung

More than 500 tiles have student and project sponsor names

By Kate Carter

Sherry Rodriguez doesn't like seeing anyone's hard work and talent wasted. Especially her own and that of her community.

So when she heard that a construction company working to refurbish Willow Glen Elementary School beginning last summer had not only broken its commemorative tile mural--which she had designed--when taking it down, but was also dragging its heels on hanging it back up, she did something.

The Willow Glen resident got the attention of Steve Adamo in the San Jose Unified School District's facilities and construction department. He helped get the mural reassembled, restored and re-hung on the kindergarten building wall facing Minnesota Avenue March 23.

"I was there about six times on Saturday," Rodriguez says of overseeing the re-installation. "It looks wonderful."

The mural is about 10 feet by 12 feet and features a large willow tree spanning several central tiles. The tree is surrounded by about 500 tiles with the names of all the school's students during its 100th anniversary observed four years ago, as well as names of individuals who paid for a tile and helped sponsor the artwork.

Rodriguez, a graduate of Willow Glen Elementary, Middle and High schools with children attending the middle and high schools, decided to do something to acknowledge the elementary school's centennial. With the help of other school parents and community leaders, she came up with and implemented the mural project and paid for it to be hung on the administration building's wall.

But the group knew the administration building was slated for demolition and replacement and so designed the framed mural so that it could safely be removed and reinstalled in fewer than 10 pieces.

Unfortunately, though, no one told the demolition crew, which took the mural down in between 12 and 15 pieces and chipped and lost tiles, Rodriguez says. "They didn't take super-good care [of it]," she says.

Rodriguez also found out that the construction company's original project supervisor, who had agreed to rehang the mural, had been replaced with someone less than enthusiastic about rehanging it.

"I had to fight tooth and nail to find somebody" to solve the problem, she says. "I said, 'We're going to have to put this back up; it's a community thing.' I didn't think it was right that we [the original mural coordinators] pay for it. I kept trying and talking to different people. Finally I had to pull some of my own connections" at the district and with the bond oversight committee, she said.

In January, Rodriguez got Adamo's attention and "from then on it's been smooth," she says. "His people fixed it. They had to go out and find matching tiles and regrout some of them. They reframed the whole thing. I'm very happy with the results."

Calls to the district were not returned before deadline.

Rodriguez says she also made sure the mural was facing Minnesota Avenue, "because I wanted to make sure it was seen by the community."

Rodriguez was also the brains behind Willow Glen Middle School's gymnasium floor mural, completed last spring in celebration of the school's 50th anniversary. But, she says, she has no plans to do something for the high school, which also turned 50 last year.

"I'm glad to have them both done," she says. "My husband decided if I did [another mural], he'd divorce me. That's the end of murals for me."

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