MHM Time Machine

Matthew Jackett is a junior at Marin Academy and interned at Marin History Museum this summer. During his internship Matthew wrote this series of blog posts on the mural installed on Youth in Arts refurbished facade at 917 C Street. We were happy to collaborate with YIA to celebrate this new mural, which illustrates Marin history. 

Join Youth in Arts at a public reception and exhibit opening focused on the mural on Friday, September 14, from 5-8 p.m. And, Thanks, Matthew for your research and writing! 

Youth in Arts’ newest project allowing students to explore the history of Marin in an artistic medium is a mural placed on the outside of their building. The mural was created by students at Davidson Middle School with the help of Brooke Toczylowski, an artist who works with Youth in Arts.

The mural works inward from two ends chronologically, with the center panels representing the present and future of San Rafael. The beginning of the history of Marin and San Rafael is the Native American Miwoks, and that is what the first panel of the mural depicts.

The man in the mural is a Miwok elder, Gene Buvelot, who was interviewed by the students. He has been a member of the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria, otherwise known as the Federated Coast Miwok, for 12 years. He gave the students information for their research project and helped them learn more about the Miwok culture, but also to recognize that Miwoks and Native Americans are still very much alive and a part of today’s world. Similarly, his presence in the mural is meant to depict Miwoks not as something in a history book, but something very much alive, with a thriving culture that lives on. It places Miwoks in the present as well as the past.

The Coast Miwok people who inhabited Marin thrived off of the abundance of the land and its natural resources for over 3000 years. The bountiful earth provided many plants such as acorns and hazelnuts to eat, as well as birds and small animals that could be captured with bows and arrows or slings and traps.

In the foreground of the panel is a sáka, or traditional tule canoe. It was the Miwok people’s main means of transportation across water. The canoes were dry and seaworthy and could seat as many as three people. They were made from tule reeds, making them water resistant. Rowers used double-bladed paddles to propel the boat forward. It was on boats such as these that the Miwoks went to greet Sir Francis Drake when he first arrived in the Bay Area.

Behind the canoe and the Miwok elder are grass houses woven from tule reeds, called kótcha. It was in structures such as these that the Miwok people lived. Some were large enough to fit multiple families. In the main villages, of which there are over 600 identified locations, there were also large roundhouses for dancing and ceremonies.

Across the top of the mural stretches the Mount Tamalpais ridgeline that is so familiar to Marin residents. The shape of the ridgeline has been said to look like the silhouette of a sleeping woman. In the mural, that outline is highlighted by the depiction of an actual sleeping woman, painted in the likeness of one of the students at Davidson Middle School who worked on the mural. Her body fades away to be a part of the mountain.

Visit the Youth in Arts Blog HERE

A portion of the mural painted by Davidson Middle School students