MURALS

For a dozen years or so I have been fascinated with wall murals that depict history and reveal what once stood on the same spot of a current building. Bringing back Yesteryear seemed like a great project and I soap-boxed sermons to every organization in the small town I live nearest to -- North Fork (of the Willow Creek) , California. This once bustling town boasted a great socio-economic base with three shifts at the local lumber mill, lots of positions at the US Forestry Service and challenging jobs at the tungsten mine located up the highway east of town. In the early 1980's when my husband and I  had a business on the Main street there was a total of 90 businesses on the Main and in South Fork (of the Willow Creek). All in what would amount to a six block area. Four in North Fork and two in South Fork. Most of them were managed by women, many of whom had husbands employed elsewhere.  The buildings were well maintained and their positioning on the side of a mountain and round a curve appeared charming and full of potential.

When the mill closed down entirely and the government reduced their force in the Forestry division an economic trauma fell like a black shadow over the residents who now had to try and sell their homes and move on to where work was available. The Main street showed the depletion of businesses and the buildings began to show neglect and delayed maintenance. 

I was commissioned to paint a mural depicting the 85 yearsof gardenging done by all the grandmothers in one family. This piece was displayed in front of the family's historical home on the road leading into the Main street of town.   This whet my appetite and I set forth with a vision. My hope in painting murals of the past history was to provide art as an economig generator for tourism. After many preentations and meetings, I found most everyone liked the idea but few came forth to get involved. My husband and I decided to do it ourselves and started out doing two small murals of past history and apply these 'billboards' on the builidings where the subhect matter once stood. Then we had a chance to paint the wall on the deck of a local restaurant and painted the hotel that once stood on that same spot. We added a strip of the Main street from that same era back in the early 1900's.  

When I approached the new owner of the super market about painting the old mill on his wall he agreed and it became a community project and folk stepped up to the plate to power-wash, prime, draw at night with an over-head projector, and help in a dozen ways. A hardware store provided all the paint and allama ranch provided all the brushes. With the assitance of two of my studentss we painted three memorial murals (that blended as one) in three weeks of paiintng from 8 am to noon, Monday through Friday. Another volunteer clear-coated it and the community considers it theirs. They enjoy it, claim it, and I'm deliighted my dream came to be reality. Now more walls are being prepared for historical murals and who knows where this will lead.