Teacher uses campus walls for murals

Photo by Paul Robeson, Reporter

COUGARS APLENTY: Gary Scriven points to one of the many murals that adorn the inside and outside of Anderson Middle School. The artist has been teaching at the school for 10 years.

Gary Scriven was always torn between his desire to create and his love of teaching. Before becoming the art teacher at Anderson Middle School (AMS), Scriven created, displayed and sold artwork while he lived in the Eureka area. He is proficient in watercolors, acrylics and oils but prefers to work in oils. He had one of his paintings displayed in the Senators’ Gallery in Sacramento.

The murals at AMS adorn the walls in the library and several outside walls. There are big murals and a few small cougar heads over the doors and one entire outside wall of the “400 wing” on the campus. The cougar is the school mascot and Scriven likes to go to the zoo in Auburn to take photographs to use in the mural work.

Most of the murals at the school are done by the students in Scriven’s art classes. Scriven did the two cougar murals in the library. He teaches three periods of art, as well as language arts and reading.

Scriven, a 1961 graduate of Arcadia High School, helped make backdrops for theatre productions while he was still in school. He continues today to do murals for his church, the First Church of the Nazarene in Redding, for its Christmas Connection.

“I like to work big,” Scriven said. “Sometimes there are three sets of backdrops 12 feet high by 52 feet long at the church,” he said.

The art teacher started teaching 10 years ago when he completed his degree at Simpson University and then went through their credentialing program to teach. With his credits from the College of the Redwoods and Humboldt State, he was able to qualify as a supervisor in music and art.

“I was fortunate to find a school district that wants to educate the whole person, and the arts fit into this district’s philosophy.”

Scriven and his wife, Catherine, have 14 grandchildren.