By Cathy Spaulding
Old pictures outside the walls of a downtown music store are getting a new look this week.
University of Central Oklahoma painting instructor Bob Palmer and four past and present students are repainting murals outside Square Deal Music, 212 W. Broadway.
Palmer and eight UCO art students painted the original scenes in April 2001. The scenes, drawn from historic Muskogee photographs, were painted on remnants of a building that housed S&Q; Clothiers. The building was torn down in the late 1990s, opening the former store site as a downtown park.
Since 2001, artists have returned several times to repaint parts of the mural when plaster fell from the wall.
“When the plaster kept falling off, we decided to do a more extensive renovation,” said Kim Walton, past president of the Muskogee Area Arts Council. She said Palmer and four artists arrived in Muskogee on Monday and are expected to work through today.
Artists and volunteers spent Tuesday morning prying and whacking the walls with crow bars and hammers until most of the plaster had fallen. Chunks of white plaster, mortar, red dirt and various shades of blue and brown paint littered the side of the building.
Oklahoma City artist Scott Henderson, who worked on the original mural, said some plaster patches held so tightly to the walls, they could not come down.
“It’s easier to just beat it with a hammer because a pry-bar doesn’t work as well,” said Charlie Walton, Kim Walton’s 13-year-old son, who helped remove plaster. He said he spent about 45 minutes Tuesday morning striking at one scene and 35 minutes taking down another scene.
Henderson said the biggest challenge of the repainting has been matching the paintings with the stone.
“With stone, there are some really deep grooves in it,” he said, comparing the ruddy stone with the smooth plaster from the original murals.
Painters had to deal mostly with stone work and flaking mortar on the first floor. On the second floor, they painted mostly over old bricks, a far more even and easier task.
Some bricks had an old grocery ad painted over them.
Henderson said he expects the project to take a little longer than first projected.
“We had all the water damage from the old walls,” he said.
Henderson said the 2001 project was his first mural.
“Most of us were students at the time and were a little intimidated at the project,” he said. “But a lot of us have gone on to do this professionally.”
Henderson said he has changed his painting style since that first mural.
“You’re painting on a much larger scale,” he said. “You’re using a lot bigger, bolder strokes,” he said.
Kim Walton said the $6,000 project is being funded by the Muskogee Area Arts Council and the building owner, along with donations and support from numerous individuals. ACECO donated a motorized lift to get artists to the second floor. Palmer’s studio brought in scaffolds for other high jobs.
Walton said arts council members also have provided food for the artists or invited them for dinner.
Jay Updike, who manages the building for his father, owner R. L Updike, said the murals give the building “kind of a historic blend.”
He said Muskogee’s Bank of America branch deserves credit for helping to make the area by his building into a park.
“It really adds to it,” he said.
Walton said that, while it’s too early to judge the repainting, she knows it will look good.
“And we won’t have plaster falling on people,” she said.
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