Laguna Beach, CA Wyland Whaling Wall 1

History of the Laguna Beach Whaling Wall 1

-Gray Whale and Calf

Wyland’s idea for painting whales on the sides of buildings developed quite naturally from the difficulty he had in portraying the mammoth creatures on small canvasses. In 1978, his desire to paint whales life-size led him up and down the Pacific Coast Highway from San Diego to San Francisco until he finally found the “perfect wall”, in Laguna Beach. Laguna's long history as an internationally known art colony, its coastal location and the fact that the gray whales migrate along its shoreline each year made it the best choice for Wyland’s first life-size mural.

It took the artist almost three years to get permission to paint his first Whaling Wall. “I nearly gave up, but a local writer, Tom Klingenmier, who later became one of my best friends and supporters encouraged me to not give up and to find another wall at the Hotel Laguna parking lot.” Depicting a life-size California gray whale and her calf, the mural was completed on the side of the Hotel Laguna parking lot wall on July 9, 1981. The dedication ceremony was held amid great public adulation and considerable fanfare: And it also happened to be Wyland’s 25th birthday,

“While I was finishing this mural, I realized the kind of impact it was having on the people who were looking at it, he says.” There was nothing like it in Orange County, or anywhere else for that matter.” The public’s response was just fantastic, and this was when he decided to paint 100 of these Whaling Walls throughout the world. Five years later, Wyland returned to repaint Whaling Wall I because cars from the hotel’s parking lot were continually bumping into it. While refurbishing the wall, he surprised everyone by repainting the whales so that they faced the opposite direction, toward the ocean.” I just wanted the public to view the mural in a new perspective,” he says of the reversal. “People told me something looked different, but they couldn’t figure out what it was.”

More to Know

• The early 1980s were a period of change in the environmental movement. After
  the initial enthusiasm for environmental action in the preceding decade, including
  the National Environmental Policy Act, the creation of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and the Clear Air and Clean Water acts, public attention moved on. But activities like the Wyland Whaling Wall murals were the first sparks to reignite passions.

• In the 1980s the state of California experienced escalating pressures to develop its coasts. More construction and more people led to more threats upon marine habitats and the state’s biodiversity. Although the mural took two years, the
  attention it received called attention to the ongoing challenges related to water
  pollution, habitat loss and oil spills that threatened the state’s vast marine life.

Whaling wall 1
Hotel Laguna , Laguna Beach California, USA
Size 140 x 10 feet
Dedicated July 9, 1981
By Mrs. John Wayne

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