Cool Critters of the California Current
More than just a canvas for whimsical critters overlooking the ocean
Story by David Laws
A concrete bunker-like structure built in the 1950s by the U.S. Navy to train Cold War pilots in aerial combat today stands as a controversial nexus of art, culture, history, and science in the otherwise sedate seaside resort of Pacific Grove at the western tip of California’s Monterey Peninsula. Its most prominent feature, a colorful mural of stylized sea creatures, is under threat.
Long considered an anomaly alongside such visitor attractions as quaint Victorian residences and a Monarch butterfly over-wintering grove, the bulky outline of the deserted naval facility boldly intrudes into the wind-blown, sand-dune setting of Point Pinos. Many residents assumed that the site at 1352 Lighthouse Avenue was adequately protected from further development by multiple council resolutions, the city’s zoning code, and Pacific Grove’s Local Coastal Program. This all changed in April 2022.
Ignoring protests from Congressman Jimmy Panetta regarding dictates of the Public Buildings Reform Board and a strongly worded letter from the California Coastal Commission about misleading potential buyers, the government General Services Administration sold the building at auction to private bidders from the East Coast.
The new owner’s intentions, rumored as razing the building and constructing a house for his mother, remain murky. Members of the Center for Ocean Art, Science, and Technology (COAST), a group established to promote local ocean-related artistic and scientific interests, are urging the protection of the mural designed by Alaskan artist Ray Troll that encircles the crown of the building.
Dedicated in 2008, Green Seas Blue Seas is more than just stunning art; it transformed a stark concrete bunker into a landmark canvas depicting the scientific and maritime history of the community. From its location overlooking the California Coastal Trail, this unique display is enjoyed by hundreds of thousands of visitors annually.
Ancestors of the Ohlone Costanoan Rumsen-speaking people lived on the Monterey Peninsula, including the oceanfront near Point Pinos, for thousands of years before Spanish explorers arrived in 1602. Or in their words — “since time began.” A Coast Guard-commissioned survey in 1977 determined that although a lighthouse, golf course, and the navy building covered much of the site, it was still sufficiently intact to warrant strong protective measures, including eligibility for the National Register. It is registered with the State’s Native American Heritage Commission and is a sacred site for the indigenous people.
The original function of the facility constructed in 1954 was radar-controlled air intercept training for navy pilots. In the early 1960s, it served as the administrative office and laboratory of the Fleet Numerical Weather Facility (FNWF) Communications Division. Working together with personnel at Monterey’s Naval Postgraduate School, naval engineers at the site pursued pioneering and historically significant advances in computational weather forecasting and communications. These included the first transmission of weather data over analog telephone lines and the first transmission of weather data and images by satellite to ships at sea. A former employee claims that technology to ensure that “a fish can’t fart in the ocean today without the navy knowing about it in real-time” began here.
Environmental Research Division scientists from NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) Fisheries’ Southwest Fisheries Science Center (SWFSC) occupied the building from 1994 until 2014. Their work played a role in improving our understanding of the climate processes responsible for El Niño and the Pacific Decadal Oscillation and their impact on commercial fisheries, such as the devastating Monterey Bay sardine collapse of the 1950s. With funding from multiple sources, including its Preserve America Initiative, NOAA commissioned Guggenheim Fellow and internationally renowned artist Ray Troll to design a mural to commemorate these important scientific contributions.
Troll is known for his whimsical style of blending art and science to convey information in a memorable and easy-to-understand manner. He describes his process on this project:
I met with scientists at the building on a number of occasions to better understand their work. I learned a great deal about the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (the PDO) and NOAA’s investigation on its cyclic regimes so important to all sea life in the region. I eventually formulated the concept of warmer ‘blues seas’ changing to the colder ‘green seas’ to reflect the shifting ocean conditions of the California coast. Two sides of the building would have blue backgrounds, two would have green. They’d be staggered as you walked around the building. The cooler green panels would have creatures that live in an anchovy-based food chain; the blue panels would reflect a warmer, sardine-based regime.
The building had been constructed using poured concrete panels arranged in rows, so it seemed natural to have individual scenes in each rectangle. The trick was to have visual continuity, to make the separate pieces flow together, and move the viewer seamlessly around the building from one panel to the next. The SWFSC scientists supplied me with an extensive ‘menu’ of creatures that thrived in the two climate regimes and those that flourished in both. It was quite a list, but I was free to draw from it as I saw fit and to depict creatures I was particularly inspired by or that had a certain visual appeal for me. I spent most of 2007 working on the colored pencil drawings. I would submit them and get feedback and guidance along the way. I had to alter a number of them after the review process. Still others were scrapped entirely and had to be redone. I was committed to scientific accuracy as well as visual impact, and each panel, and the mural as a whole, reflects that balance.
Two California-based mural artists, Roberto Salas and Guillermo (AKA Memo)) Jauregui projected and painted Troll’s compositions onto sections of non-woven material known as Polytab or Parachute Cloth. After mounting on the building, the mural Green Seas Blue Seas was unveiled on November 12, 2008, as the fourth in the Pacific Grove Historical Mural Project.
Comprising 32 six-by-eight-foot fabric panels spanning 250 feet, the mural encircles all four walls of the building. Each panel recounts cultural, ecological, historical, and scientific information about species and events endemic to Monterey Bay. As each wall represents a PDO cycle, each typically lasting a decade or more, these natural variations have been repeated many times throughout history: there is no true beginning or end to the mural.
SWFSC used this opportunity to convey the complex story of how long-term climatic trends can impact marine organisms to the general public through a series of initiatives, including the website Green Seas Blue Seas.
A full-color poster depicting each of the panels subtitled California Current. Changing by Degrees was printed for distribution to museums, schools, and at ocean-related meetings and conferences. PDFs of the poster can be downloaded from this SWFSC page. Printed copies with a key to the graphic images are available on request.
In 2011, Pacific Grove’s Museum of Natural History mounted online and physical exhibits, Cool Critters of the California Current in Words and Pictures, of Troll's original drawings. Each image enjoyed “poetic help” from Milton Love, Robert Pitman, and Bob Kiwala that begins:
A cold, rich sea has a greenish hue
When it’s warmer it looks much more blue
And so the animals change
Throughout their range
When the colors switch ‘tween the two.
An ocean green is both rich and cold
Where animals thrive in numbers untold
While an ocean’s that’s bluer
Is warm but there’s fewer
Creatures for us to behold.
Keyboard musician Don Kenoyer created a soundtrack to accompany the exhibit. The full Green Seas / Blue Seas suite, with six tracks written specifically for the event, can still be enjoyed online.
More than just a canvas
The building at 1352 Lighthouse Avenue is more than just a canvas for a whimsical series of colorful images. It is situated on a site sacred to Native Americans that they demand should be disturbed and desecrated no more. It played an important role in laying the technological groundwork for weather forecasting tools that we rely on for our comfort and safety today. And those images present an accessible interpretation of ground-breaking scientific research that took place here and is a unique reflection of the rich cultural history of Pacific Grove and the entire Monterey Bay.
Be sure to stop by and absorb this extraordinary national treasure's full impact and import on your next visit to the Monterey Peninsula. It may not be there for long.
Resources
“About the Pacific Grove site: The NOAA Fisheries’ Pacific Grove Mural: Green Seas/Blue Seas. The California Current, Climate Change and Sustainable Fisheries.” Southwest Fisheries Science Center, NOAA Fisheries. Retrieved on 1.15.23 from: https://oceanview.pfeg.noaa.gov/gsbs/
Sara B. McPherson, “Lost in Translation: Using the Green Seas/Blue Seas Initiative to Bridge the Communication Gap Between Science and Art,” U.C. San Diego, Center for Marine Biology and Conservation (2011–04–01). Retrieved on 1.15.2023 from: https://escholarship.org/uc/item/2jz1p64h
Letter from the Center for Ocean Art, Science, & Technology (COAST) Steering & Advisory Committees to Pacific Grove City Council “RE: Historical significance of the former US Navy/NOAA property at 1352 Lighthouse Avenue,” dated January 15, 2023.
Video recorded on 4.3.23 of Ray Troll speaking at Stanford’s Hopkins Marine Station on “My Fish Filled Life and How I Became an Accidental Science Communicator”
[Rev: 1.28.23 Video link added 4.5.23]
