Herald Publications - El Segundo, Hawthorne, Lawndale & Inglewood Community Newspapers Since 1911 - (310) 322-1830 - Vol. 3, No. 23 - June 10, 2021
Inside
This Issue
Certified & Licensed
Professionals.......................7
Classifieds............................2
Entertainment......................2
Hawthorne............................3
Lawndale..............................4
Inglewood.............................5
Legals.................................4,6
Pets........................................8
South Bay Seniors Begin their Day
with a Special Morning Breakfast
Congratulations to our seniors and thank you to the Hawthorne food services team for providing our students with an excellent senior breakfast. You are appreciated. Photo courtesy Hawthorne High School.
Seniors..................................3 John Van Hamersveld Anticipates
Weekend
Forecast
Another “Endless Summer.”
By Duane Plank
John Van Hamersveld may not be an El
Segundo resident, but the Rancho Palos
Verdes local and renowned graphic artist and
illustrator has established a large footprint in
the South Bay and across the pop culture
canyon for more than 60 years. “El Segundo
is where my career started, as a surfer and
an artist,” Van Hamersveld has said.
An El Segundo High School graduate,
class of 1959, ESHS Hall-of-Fame inductee
in 2017, the acclaimed graphic artist is also
the designer of the colorful imprimaturs that
grace the façade of a Department of Water
of Power tower in El Segundo. You can
view the tower as you travel East on Grand
Avenue after making a turn from Vista Del
Mar or while traipsing to or from the beach
as we fast-forward to the summer of 2021.
Hopefully, as the pandemic continues to
abate, this will be the new Endless Summer
for fortunate beach residents like us.
Suzanne Fuentes, the long-time member
of the El Segundo City Council, helped
facilitate Van Hamersveld’s induction into
the ESHS Hall-of-Fame and his selection to
design the DWP tank mural. The tank mural
unveiling took place in April of 2018, after
what Fuentes described as a “warp-speed”
design and installation process, and was attended
not only by local residents but also
a veritable “Who’s Who” of surfing.
Fuentes said that Van Hamersveld’s artwork
“provides a beautiful entrance to El Segundo.
Seeing John Van Hamersveld’s vibrant art
installation,” Fuentes said, “always makes
me smile!”
Van Hamersveld marveled at his induction
into the ESHS Hall-Fame, mentioning that
when he saw his portrait gracing a school
campus wall, he could not help but think that
selected Hall-of-Famers usually were athletes,
like baseballers the Brett Brothers or Scott
McGregor, or maybe scientists (must admit
those inductees’ names were unfamiliar to
me), not graphic artists.
Van Hamersveld also happens to be the
talented man who designed the splashy poster
for the still iconic 60’s surf film, the Endless
Summer. And, oh, by the way, he is credited
with designing album covers, more than 300,
for a few bands that you may have heard of,
while he worked for Capitol Records in the
mid-ish sixties as head of design/art director.
How did Van Hamersveld score the gig at
Capitol Records? He said that at the time, his
Endless Summer poster, which is featured in
the Smithsonian, was “selling like hotcakes”
in college campus bookstores and the like,
and that he was invited to meet with a bigwig
at Capitol Records. Van Hamersveld took his
poster to the meeting, and the record executive
made the (incorrect) assumption that Van
Airplane. And he also (presumably) received
a paycheck for his artistic work that graced
publications like Esquire, Billboard, and the
rock bible, Rolling Stone.
Van Hamersveld related that he was selected
to design the artwork for the cover of the
Beatles Magical Mystery Tour album. He said
that the accompanying MMT film bombed,
but that the album was not so shockingly,
phenomenally successful. “That was my
success there,” he reminisced.
Van Hamersveld said that the “most unique”
cover that he designed was for the Rolling
Stones “Exile on Main Street” album, adding
that his renderings that graced the old vinyl
records allowed him to be “paid really well.”
After finishing his tenure at Capitol Records,
Van Hamersveld took advantage of
burgeoning entrepreneurial opportunities that
were blossoming some 50 years ago. Large
record stores were starting to make their
imprints in suburban concrete jungles, and,
as luck would have it, flashy vinyl record
jacket covers were a great way for stores
to catch the eye (and open the wallets) of
music aficionados.
On a personal aside, it is great to see the
comeback in the interest of vintage vinyl
albums. I only wish that I hadn’t offloaded
almost all of my 60’s+ plus collection of
records when my record player died about a
dozen or so years ago. Instead, it seems that
I am only left with the records (RUSH, David
Sanborn, Ted Nugent) that no one wanted at
the time, even if they were offered up for free.
Van Hamersveld started working to promote
Hamersveld also designed album covers.
Not quite, but Van Hamersveld said that
he “didn’t say a word” to correct the exec’s
false assumption and gladly accepted his
nearly immediate job offer. This led to Van
Hamersveld designing a boatload of more than
300 splashy, and oft-times, psychedelic album
covers, including artwork and or promotional
posters for the vinyl efforts of the Beatles,
Rolling Stones, KISS, Grateful Dead, Blondie,
the Beach Boys, Jimi Hendrix, and Jefferson See Van Hamersveld, page 5
Friday
Sunny
71˚/58˚
Saturday
Sunny
72˚/61˚
Sunday
Sunny
73˚/62˚
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