City hall will re-locate the “Stormin’ Main Street – 1883” mural on the side of the former Times-Herald building, although a new location and artist to re-paint it still need to be secured.
The late artist Dale Cline painted the mural in 1991 at 44 Fairford Street West, where it has remained for the past 31 years. However, new owners — Gold Key Investments — purchased the building recently and planned to renovate the east wall where the mural is.
A door has already been installed, while the company is expected to add windows.
The public art committee is looking for new locations so it can preserve the mural and ensure it remains displayed downtown. The process includes finding an artist to duplicate the mural since Cline died years ago.
“We’re definitely going to look at some options (for locations) … . We’re fortunate in this situation that the new owner of the building is willing to work with us to find a new home for it,” said Derek Blais, director of parks and recreation.
“We’re hoping that it all works out.”
While the mural has been on that building for decades, it’s common practice to re-locate such artworks as buildings are renovated, he said. City hall knows that many murals won’t remain in the same spot forever, so it looks for opportunities to re-locate and display them in the community.
Instead of re-painting the mural onto the side of a new building, the hired artist will likely paint the artwork on bi-bond panels, Blais continued. This will make it easier to move in the future.
While the committee has been brainstorming about potential locations, the new building’s owners have said they would welcome the mural on the west side of the venue.
“It was actually a suggestion they brought forward as part of their original notification to the committee that they would be doing some renovations there, so I think they would be fully willing to do that,” said Blais.
Hired artists have replicated many of the community’s 45 murals on panels during the past few decades, so the process to find someone to re-make this artwork will take the same approach, he continued. The murals committee obtained the copyright to the mural when it purchased it in 1991, so the city technically owns the artwork.
The committee wants to create a plan to handle this project next year and re-locate the mural by the summer. However, it depends on finding an artist.
“That’s going to be an important part of our committee’s work here moving forward, is gathering a really solid inventory (of artists),” said Blais. “The committee has traditionally partnered with Grant McLaughlin, who has done some great work in replicating and just maintaining the murals every year.
“… We know of one for sure, but we’ll be exploring our options.”
Chinese mural
The public art committee is still looking for a new home for the Chinese mural that used to be on the west side of the building that now houses Gina’s Jewelry on High Street West.
Blais noted that that item would be on the committee’s agenda next meeting. The artwork is already on panels, so the group needs to find a location of a suitable size.
