The Nature of Pleasanton

Positioned at the corner of Black Ave and Santa Rita Road, the painted utility box sits near the front driveway of Alisal Elementary School.  Mehdi Zaidi, a 10th-grade student at Amador Valley High School in 2015, was commissioned under the Pleasanton “Project Paint Box-2015” to create five art panels each representing nature.  One panel invites the viewer to walk a sun-shaded tree-lined path with a brightly dressed woman, another panel depicts the path at night and a moonlight third panel is framed by a silhouette tree. A large hummingbird graces the next panel and reinforces Zaidi’s observations of nature as important to life in Pleasanton. The last panel boasts a large red rose, a nod to the Don Juan Rose developed by Pleasanton’s Jackson & Perkins. Perkins claimed to be “The World’s Largest Rose Grower” and had a shop on Pleasanton’s Main Street.  After 18 years in Pleasanton, the rose-growing operation moved to the San Joaquin Valley, but the red Don Juan Rose stayed and became Pleasanton’s City flower. Later talking the helm of the rose-growing business in Pleasanton, Mary DeVor Dolan and her husband John continued, and the Dolan name became synonymous with many of the top rose varieties grown in the U.S. and Latin America. Although fragrant rose fields no longer perfume the town of Pleasanton, the rose is celebrated in artwork around town.  Look closely at the large stained-glass window in the Pleasanton Hotel on Main Street, murals, and small stained-glass windows around town.

Jan Coleman-Knight