Concert promoter Kyle Wilkerson discovered surviving ceiling panels, floral stencils, small sculptures and a stained-glass window by Lucile Lloyd while renovating the former South Pasadena elementary school auditorium. Lucile Lloyd was a prominent Works Progress Administration muralist who painted in local schools; many of her panels were believed lost. Sid the Cat, a longtime independent concert-promoting team including Wilkerson, Brandon Gonzalez and Sean Newman, is restoring the building into a 500-capacity venue. The auditorium will reopen in fall 2025. The venue aims to support the local arts ecosystem and respond to recent community needs after the Eaton fire.
Lucile Lloyd was a prominent [Works Progress Administration] muralist; she did work all among the schools in this area," said concert promoter Wilkerson. "There are photos of her in menswear smoking up in the rafters back in the 1930s. She had a tragic life, and ended up committing suicide. We thought all of the panels she did here were gone.
But then right before Christmas," he continued, "one of the ceiling panels had started cracking. I looked up and I was like, 'They're still there.' The light was still shining in.
The first thing we thought of when the fires happened was 'What can we do to help?' The second was 'I wish we were open already, because we could have done food drives and shows to raise funds,' Wilkerson said. 'It's a very fragile little ecosystem that we're a part of here.'
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