New additions at the Cabrillo High School Aquarium include seals and dolphins. However, instead of swimming around in tanks, they’re painted on the building’s interior walls.
San Luis Obispo County artist Colleen Gnos began working this spring to refresh her original kelp forest mural in the aquarium, this time adding in some Chumash history.
Chris Ladwig, a Cabrillo High graduate turned teacher, has been an aquarium adviser for 13 years. He said it’s “really cool” that Gnos blended cultural elements with the ecology.
“In the foreground there’s a Chumash tumult. … Then there’s some fishermen in the tumult that she actually modeled off of real faces,” Ladwig told the Sun. “Below them in the water they’ve got some of their abalone-shell hooks for fishing, and then there’s also a diver down below, too.”
The project was funded by the National Marine Sanctuary Foundation, Ladwig said, and the depictions were informed by local tribal members after the Chumash Heritage National Marine Sanctuary was designated in 2024.
Scheduled to be unveiled on Sept. 23, the new art is part of the aquarium’s 40th anniversary celebration. The next open house, Sharktoberfest, is on Oct. 21 from 6 to 8 p.m.
Find more information about the Lompoc aquarium, located at 4350 Constellation Road, online at cabrillohighschoolaquarium.org.
This article appears in September 24 – October 1, 2026.
