Hello again!

With the boxes mostly unpacked and lots of folks away on summer vacations, I am finding a chance to get back to search for the works of the Sheets studio. I have a checklist of about one hundred Millard Sheets news items, tips from readers, and more to follow up, so as I process them there should be lots new on the blog.

Also, I have learned that my paper on these murals and their meaning was accepted for presentation at the Urban History Association’s biennial meeting in Las Vegas, October 21st at 10:30am. (Program here).

Paper proposed for a panel on “Urban Historians and Foundation Myths,” Urban History Association conference, Las Vegas, October 2010

My paper is titled “The Memory of Californios in Nixonland: History in Millard Sheets’s Home Saving Murals,” and will appear as part of two panels on “Urban Historians and Foundation Myths,” alongside work by Bell Clement on Washington, D.C,; David Schley on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad; and Bill Issel on San Francisco. I am looking forward to it.

Finally, when I went out to the movies with The Blog’s Partner the other night, we walked right by the exquisite mural at Sunset and Vine (above), and I felt happy once again to be living in LA. I snapped this photo from my newest smartphone, just after sunset.

So watch this space for… weekly?… updates in the months ahead…

Hello everyone!

The semester is over, and the sun is out here in West LA — the new home of these blogs!

(We went to the beach yesterday, and did not drive by this mosaic, but we could have. Any news on the building’s status? I hear it is/was between owners.)

Thanks to all those who have continued to comment and add locations to the Home Savings blog, and to those who have expressed interest in the Civil War Era in the American West.

We are still unpacking boxes and getting our coordinates, but I wanted to let you know that new posts will be coming soon — and I will have a chance to check out more sites in the Southland in person, at least during the summer and other school breaks.

More in the days and weeks ahead–