Columbia Street Mural Fest draws hundreds, picks winner for Port building

WENATCHEE — The long-awaited Columbia Street Mural Fest finally invaded downtown Wenatchee on August 9, and the brainchild of creator Faith Merz took over an entire city block with music, food, drinks, games, creator spaces for visitors and, of course, murals. Eight 8-by-8 paintings lined Columbia Street as they were painted live in person from 10 a.m. until the artists were instructed to put their brushes down moments after 6:30 p.m.

Set up on giant “easels” along the street, the works were competing to take a place of honor on a west-facing wall of the formerly agricultural storage buildings down the block between Orondo Avenue and Yakima Street. The winning entry, from local artist Kathleen Dyer, will be enlarged to 14-by-14 and put on a removable facade for installation on the building. The historic brick of the original structure will remain untouched.

The muralists were mostly local, although two were selected from Seattle, both, interestingly, from the Capitol Hill district, which is famous for its vibrant murals. Dyer originally came from Utah, but has been in the Wenatchee Valley for decades and has been claimed as a local for most of her life.

Entrants included:

• Sarah Sims, assisted by Ellen Bruex (local)
• Valentina Gonzalez, assisted by Christina Juarez (Seattle)
• Elena Payne and Lindsay Breidenthal (working as a team, local)
• Glynn Rosenberg (Seattle)
• Kristen Lynn (local)
• Marnie Lynn (local)
• Jimi Drake (local, owner of Ole Soul Tattoo Studio)
• And the winner, Kathleen Dyer, assisted by her husband Hans Hessburg

While the winning entry will go on the Columbia Street wall, the fate of the others — all incredible works of art — is unknown so far. There’s talk of putting them in other places around the valley in their present form (not enlarged, like the winner’s will be), or they could be eventually auctioned off at a fundraiser or other event.

Eloise Sheets, the Marketing and Events Coordinator for the Downtown Association, was on hand greeting people all day and giving details about what would be happening. She said “Everyone is working with the same color palette, we provided all of the paint and the brushes and supplies — if they had any brushes they wanted to bring, they did — and we did reach out to a lot of artists and invited them to apply. I believe we had 21 entrants.”

Merz, the coordinator of the Mural Fest, was present all day as well, and was the announcer of the winner at the conclusion. “I reached out through Instagram to Val and Glynn, because I wanted people from outside the Valley to come as well — they know each other! Reception has been really positive for this whole thing, and I’m just really excited.”

In the end, nearly 300 votes were counted, all taken by visitors to the event scanning a QR code and voting with their mobile devices, and Merz said that the decision was nearly unanimous, which stands to reason: Dyer’s scene of a sunset over the Wenatchee Valley with apples growing in the foreground and an orchard along the side was truly representative of the scenic beauty of our region of North Central Washington.

Andrew Simpson: 509-433-7626 or andrew@ward.media