The mural majority

More proof that the Oregon Coast is the place 2D

By Gretchen Ammerman

Oregon Coast TODAY

The Central Coast has a bounty of public art. Try to catch it all in one day and you’ll find yourself boggled by brunch-time. To make it easier to take in, one can divide the offerings into categories, like sculptures or functional art for example. But if you want to take in art on the largest scale, you can’t go wrong with the murals that give color to our coastline.

Starting in the picturesque town of Yachats, an adorned wall on Highway 101, next to Yachats Brewing + Farmstore, is included in the Oregon Mural Trail. In point of fact, it is the only coastal mural on the trail. Part of Travel Oregon’s “Oregon is Magic” campaign, the piece by Jeremy Nichols and Jeff Sheridan shows a flotilla of ships flying out of the Pacific toward the Heceta Head lighthouse.

Heading north through Waldport, keep your eyes peeled for the Waldport Centennial Mural on the east side of the highway. Casey McEneny, an art teacher at Newport High School, painted the 10-by-48-foot mural on to large pieces of wood at Waldport High School. He said the piece depicts "the earliest indigenous people on the left side, moving rightward toward a modern-day tribal woman in ceremonial dress.”

McEneny is also the creator of some of the newest murals in a town rich with wall art, at the “Ripley’s Believe it or Not” building and the Rogue Ales Distillery in Newport.

“We have so much public art now it’s amazing,” said Newport City Recorder Peggy Hawker, who represents the city on the Newport Public Arts Committee. “Sometimes I’m overwhelmed. I’m rarely in the position where I can actually visit the art, but I understand the new murals are really worth a visit.”

Though art dots the community from tip to toe and ocean to bay, the Newport Bayfront has the densest collection, which can be appreciated on foot or in the passenger seat of a slow-moving car.

Muralist Rick Chambers created the bulk of the bay pieces, creating a unified look that can best be described as ruggedly nautical. To help you find all of the 23 pieces along the roughly six-block section, the City of Newport has created a brochure, which can be downloaded at newportoregon.gov.

The brochure made a nod to the ephemeral aspect of the city’s murals by adding photos of recently lost pieces.

“Since we put that brochure out about four years ago we’ve lost even more,” Hawker said. “Usually it’s because the wood they were painted on degraded to the point it couldn’t be revamped, or the building was remodeled.”

But according to Crystal Akins, an artist who is creating a splash in Lincoln City, the elements reclaiming the work is nothing to get hung up about.

“Who made the rules that art should be permanent?” she said. “Part of the nature of it is that it can go away, and so much of the beauty is actually in the creating.”

Akins spearheaded the creation of three ground murals in Lincoln City in 2020, the first ground murals on the Oregon Coast, modeled on the intersection paintings in Portland, which were created in the full knowledge that foot traffic would eventually mean their demise.

“We planned for that since we live at the beach,” Akins said. “They are called, ‘semi-permanent,’ which means they can be left alone and disappear, or they can be maintained. I visit them and do touch-ups when I can and, in the summer, we’re planning to do a big touch-up party.”

In best shape is the colorful and interactive musical mural at Regatta Grounds, surrounded by a kids’ musical playground, funded by the Rotary Club of Lincoln City.

Part of the appeal of the choice of surfaces, for Akins, is that it can include artists of all ages.

“Ground murals are super accessible,” she said. “You don’t have to send kids up on ladders or in cherry pickers so it’s a lot easier to get parental permission.”

Because COVID-19 shifted Akins’ plans for her artists to be mostly kids, she brought in a few established artists who infused an extra level of cultural significance into each piece.

At the Nelscott Beach access, a piece by Todd Beaty was designed to represent the Nelscott Reef, a place that draws surfers from all over the world every year.

“The Octopus was designed to represent the surf culture,” Akins said. “The kids really loved that one and when I go through social media pages that have tagged photos of the murals that’s the one that has popped up the most.”

Meanwhile, Miles Brown created the salmon ground mural at the Taft Beach Turnaround to honor a revered local tribal member, Grandma Aggie, who reintroduced the “Sacred Salmon Ceremony,” to the area.

The design includes traditional patterns and elements to channel Grandma Aggie’s connection to the natural world. Akins welcomes volunteers who would like to be involved with upkeep at any time.

If you would like to be a part of helping to maintain the existing murals or create the set of new ones, planned for August 2021, go towww.activateartsnow.com.

The northern part of this truncated trail is a piece with purpose in Pacific City on the wall of the Nestucca Adventures building on Brooten Road. Created by Lincoln City-based artist Krista Eddy, the mural depicts a range of outdoor activities beneath the slogan “Your Time, Your Future — Think Before You Drink.”

“There are so many wonderful outdoor activities in Pacific City so I was asked to show that as much as I could,” Eddy said. “It’s such a big colorful piece and I had a lot of fun doing it. It represents kayaking, surfing, hiking and even stand up paddle board yoga, but there are also a few hidden things like a ladybug, so that’s something you can do with kids too — while families were waiting for their kayaks the kids can find the hidden things.”

There are rumors as well of Sasquatches hidden in the Rogue Distillery mural by McEneny, but they are notoriously shy, so it’s best to be patient and very quiet when you are searching for them.

So, whether you simply enjoy that murals can make a drive more enjoyable, stop to take in some of the detail the artists include or actually get involved with keeping some murals from being lost to the elements, you’ll find that flat art can have quite a lot of depth.