Manhole Covers - Ellie Bogardus Street Art

A neighbor down the street from my parents' house in Cambria, California was an artist. Ellie Bogardus' home and a relative of hers' were in a two-house complex next to the state park on the point above the beach at Shamel Park. Her house was a kind of simple craftsman cottage and was built right on the cliff above the breakers. Over 25 years of vacationing in Cambria, I only saw glimpses of her. Her looking up when I did see her reminded me of that National Geographic photograph of the eyes of a shrouded young woman. But her cats were ever present - sitting in a window or out in the front of the house near the road. The yard was behind a tall wooden fence, the kind that holds in check a secret garden - mostly out of the view of passers by. On the south facing wall of her house, etched into the stucco, was an elaborate but simple scene of cats, dogs, birds, moons, and stars - all covering the tallest outside wall of the house. This style and it subjects, if a painting, was like Henri Matisse's heavy drawn lines, but with bright vibrant orange and green colors, and carried out into the street like some of the shrubbery from the garden -  etched into the cement skirts surrounding the series of manhole covers.

I remember being in a gallery on Main Street at the corner with Arlington Street that is now a pizza restaurant, and seeing a painting of hers' titled something like "Mike and the Cats" - pictured was Mike with a large mustache seated inside a room with cats, and perhaps a 
 bird cage on a table. Years ago the Seago Gallery on Moonstone Drive (1) carried her paintings, and once when I was looking for one, I asked the owner if she had any more. "Ellie hasn't painted for years," she told me. I have searched the Web looking for examples of Ellie Bogradus' paintings, but found none. There is record of her professional artist ability that has be saved in the credits of cartoons on which she was a member of production teams. My folks mentioned a long time ago that Ellie was an artist on the Charlie Brown television cartoons.

As it turns out, she was a background and scenery artist from the time of the conception of television cartoons. Crusader Rabbit was the first animated series produced specifically for television. In the credits, the background artists were David Weidman, Eleanor Bogardus, and Rosemary O'Connor. The character concept was test marketed in 1948, while the initial episode - Crusader vs. the State of Texas - aired on KNBH in Los Angeles, California on August 1, 1950. Some other filmography credits that listed her as a background artist include: Garfield and Friends; Calvin and the Colonel; King Leonardo and His Short Subjects; Race For Your Life Charlie Brown.

Time and real estate move on. Ellie died about eight years ago, and the two-cottage complex has been renovated and a house has been built on the lot to the south, so there is no sign of the cartoon wall mural (2). But at least the public art display of her craft can still be viewed out in the street, for those who care to look down at their feet, rather than up and out to the ocean views, or peering at birds flying by or cats strolling along the sides of streets, or lazily laying near gates or front doors of houses.
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(1) There are a many art galleries in Cambria, click here. Our favorite is that of Melanee Sylvester.

(2) Building codes for properties on the coast line require that renovation building has to be done on the original foundation footprint of the property. So the drawings on the wall disappeared when the house was rebuilt. Only the manhole cover skirts remain of the art.