The new mural at our Pacifica Yosemite Drive Clubhouse is featured in this week’s issue of the Pacifica Tribune. Contributing Editor Horace Hinshaw writes,
Jeffrey Wong has been surfing around the world for over 20 years. An engineer by trade, he is also a mural artist by choice. Combined with his love of surfing and painting, he has beautified the walls of the Pacifica Boys & Girls Club with a design that is familiar to all Pacificans.
As observed by many, the whales have once again returned to our shores. Wong, 45, has surfed close to whales many times over the years. Through an unexpected meeting with Vickie Flores, former Pacifica Chamber of Commerce CEO, last year at the Fog Fest, Wong now shares his love of surfing and whales with the public.
Wong has taken a barren wall at the Club and painted a multi-scenery of whales.
“The mural commemorates the whale sightings in Linda Mar last summer,” said the Hong Kong native. “I basically wanted to show how the whales showed themselves to us.”
The three-segment mural depicts lunch feeding with a whale jumping out of the water with its mouth open; a whale blowing its nose after a lunch feeding; and the third painting is a whale sighting. The painting is on a 70-foot-wide, 8-foot-high wall.
“The mural has an ocean-to-land feeling, as if you were sitting on a surfboard in the water and looking toward Linda Mar Beach, from Pedro Point to the quarry,” said Wong, who volunteered to paint the mural. “Painting is a labor of love.”
A ribbon-cutting ceremony of the painted wall was held last Thursday with the Chamber, city officials and Boys & Girls Club officials.
Read more and view photos from the event at the Pacifica Tribune’s website.