September 14th, 2021 | Story by Gordon Dritschilo | Originally Posted in the Rutland Herald
Photo by Hannah Dicton
In Rutland, artist Kathryn Wiegers installs a large whale mural at the corner of Crescent Street and Cleveland Avenue.
As Kathryn Wiegers glued a whale to the wall of Hop To It towing, a man came around the corner to watch.
“I was wondering how this was going to work,” the man said as Wiegers installed the mural facing Crescent Street.
Wiegers, who has painted numerous murals on downtown Rutland buildings, is now looking to put them in other parts of the city with the help of Green Mountain Power executive and Rutland Sculpture Trail organizer Steve Costello.
“I had a show at the Southern Vermont Art Center,” she said. “It was all large pieces. ... Some of them were sold. I kept some kind of for my own reasons.”
She said she reconsidered those reasons when she moved her studio recently.
“You know how it is when you’re moving — ‘Why do I still have this?’” she said. “I talked to Steve — there’s some buildings on the outskirts that need some love.”
Costello said the building’s location means numerous people will see the mural on their way to Pine Hill Park.
“It’s kind of a dark spot there and we thought it would look good,” said Barbara Giancola, whose family owns the building. “It’s going to look great when there’s a big pile of snow and it looks like the whale’s coming up out of the snow. ... I think it’s neat, (the murals) around the city. I like to go around and see them. I think it adds to the city.”
Costello said they are looking for homes for a heron, unicorn, lion, tyrannosaurus rex and tiger painted by Wiegers.
“We’re trying to find spots where they will add some beauty to the area,” he said. “The higher visibility, the better, obviously. ... One of my concerns was what condition the wall has to be in. It turns out you can put them up pretty much anywhere.”
More murals are still coming to the downtown as well. Costello announced last week that a photo he took of a heart-shaped light effect in a rock formation would adorn a wall over Center Street Marketplace Park. Downtown Rutland Partnership Executive Director Nikki Hindman said a design reading “Greetings from Rutland, Vermont” is being planned for a wall at City Hall and that an NAACP-sponsored mural is in the works for a Center Street Building.