California Forever unveils murals at Vista Theatre – The Vacaville Reporter

California Forever, owner of Rio Vista’s historic Vista Theatre, commissioned several murals commemorating the building’s history as it approaches its 100th anniversary next year. Artist Nick Stiles, who grew up in Rio Vista and attended Solano Community College, painted the murals on several panels around the theater and the company’s offices.

“They found me after doing a lot of local murals here in town and in Fairfield and so it was kind of a commemoration of 100 years since the Vista Theatre opened in 1925,” Stiles said.

In one panel, Stiles incorporates the very first film to be screened at the Vista Theatre, “The Dressmaker of Paris.”

Besides the beautiful theater, Stiles said, Solano County has a rich film history that he tried to capture in his works. Many films of the 1920s and 1930s that required river scenes were filmed in the Sacramento River Delta just outside Rio Vista, including parts of the original silent version of “Huckleberry Finn,” now immortalized in one of his murals. The 1925 film “The Volga Boatman,” starring William Boyd and directed by Cecil B. DeMille, was filmed in the Delta and premiered at the Vista Theatre. Boyd, whose film launched his fame and who is memorialized in the mural, later played Hopalong Cassidy.

“When we discovered the theater and rented it as a workspace, we realized it was a real gem,” said Anders Engnell, director of community partnerships for California Forever. “And with Nick Stiles, we were able to learn a lot at the Rio Vista Museum about the history of the building and how Rio Vista was really a centerpiece of Hollywood during the silent film era.”

Stiles says the murals, which took about three months of full-time work, were a pleasure to complete. Painting the theater as it would have looked in its heyday was an honor for him, and he took meticulous care with the details of the works. The faces of the audience members in one of the works, for example, are all taken from 1920s Rio Vista yearbooks.

“We only had black and white photos,” Engnell said. “So Nick reinvented his style a lot.”

Stiles said he was excited to see California Forever learn about the history of the space and happy to help them commemorate it in case it is ever renovated or modified.

“It’s a huge honor for me,” he said. “It’s funny because when I was a kid, this place was basically closed.”

Engnell said California Forever is proud to have the theater reopened to the public, showing films and hosting events with a screen the company installed. Revitalizing community spaces like the theater is a goal of the company’s downtown efforts across the county, he said, and he hopes the project will successfully blend the old and the new in more ways than one.

“I think for us it’s about empowering local communities and believing in what’s already there,” he said. “And then just providing that little extra nudge in terms of investment or assistance to get it across the finish line.”

Engnell said operating out of the theater has been a natural way for the company to integrate into the fabric of the community, and California Forever hopes to carry that philosophy into the community it hopes to build.

“The friends, the relationships and the things we learn and create here,” he said. “In many ways, those are the things that will be the seeds of the new community we’re building right here, right around the corner.”