By Daniella Segura,
Contributing writer
Though not everyone in Carol Schreiner’s Redondo Beach neighborhood knows her by name, most know of her artwork.
Schreiner, an adapted physical education teacher in Torrance, has spent the coronavirus pandemic creating chalk and bottle cap artworks on the streets and sidewalks in her neighborhood, mostly on South Broadway.
Schreiner has fashioned so many creations, the nascent artist said, she’s lost track. But, Schreiner said, she thinks she’s done 30 to 40 art pieces since the pandemic began in March 2020.
“I think if COVID hadn’t come about,” Schreiner said, “I don’t know that I would have developed this full-on artistic side of me.”
In fact, Schreiner never considered herself an artist.
It wasn’t until a neighbor walked by while she was doing chalk work and exclaimed: “Oh! Are you the artist that’s been doing this?’”
That stopped her, Schreiner said.
“I was like, ‘I am an artist,’” she said.
And Schreiner — who began her chalk art as messages of gratitude to essential workers — actually credits the pandemic for helping to unlock her inner artist.
“That wouldn’t have come out had we not had COVID,” Schreiner said. “So I really think there’s been so many beautiful things that have come from this.”
One of her most proud chalk art works was the Redondo Beach Fire Department badge she created in front of Fire Station 1. From there, her artwork evolved to include an unlikely material: Bottle caps.
As a Redondo Beach Kiwanis member, Schreiner helps collect bottle caps from the community. The caps are recycled and used to make Buddy Benches for local schools — safe spots for students to sit to signify they need a friend at recess.
Kiwanis volunteers usually drive the bottle caps to Indiana for the bench production, but the pandemic has limited the number of available trailers needed to transport the caps. That’s left Kiwanis, and Schreiner, with an excess of bottle caps — more than 5,500 pounds of them, enough to make 25 benches.
And with no students around to sort or wash the bottle caps, Schreiner took on that job as well. As she rinsed off the caps in the grass outside her building, a neighbor suggested she make a heart out of them. So she did.
From there, her artistic style grew.
Now, she creates more intricate designs with just bottle caps — from mermaids to beach scenes.
“The point of the chalk work and the cap art is to just bring people walking by a smile,” Schreiner said, “let them know that they’re seen, they’re loved, they’re part of a community.”
Schreiner’s creativity even went above and beyond.
With neighbors and friends, she created a rainbow arch out of bottle caps and fishing wire that hangs outside her building between two trees.
“We call it the ‘Happiness Portal,’” Schreiner said. “And it’s just such a joy to me to watch everybody walking through it.”
When Schreiner was sitting on the steps in front of her building on a recent Friday, a man stopped to admire the arch.
“’This is so cool! Did you do this?’” Schreiner said he asked.
“I did,” she replied. “You should walk through the Happiness Portal.”
A smile filled the man’s face as he walked through the portal and the bottle caps’ clanking reverberated around him.
When working on her art pieces in public, Schreiner said, these kinds of interactions are common.
As Schreiner recently retraced and smoothed the letters of her combined chalk-and-bottle cap art piece in front of the First United Methodist Church in her neighborhood, Tina Yalen stopped to admire the art.
“I appreciate what you do here. I saw the mermaid, the book. I mean, it’s such a labor of love. I come by and take pictures of it,” Yalen said to Schreiner. “I’m just totally blown away by the process and the commitment to it. I can’t tell you. It is such a joy. I get the chills. I’m serious.”
Schreiner replied that such appreciation “makes it worth it.”
But now that the school year has started and students are learning in-person once more, Schreiner hasn’t had much time to work on her art. She plans to keep creating, however — and doing so for as long as it’s meaningful to people.
During one of her last creations, a person who is homeless stopped and asked if he could help. Of course, she said.
So, it’s not so much about “art on the sidewalk,” Schreiner said. It’s more about what it does to bring out interactions with the community.
“That can’t be replaced with anything else,” she said.
