POULSBO — With the exception of a small salmon mural along the sidewalk, the Lindvig Way bridge is about as ordinary as any other bridge — a gray mix of asphalt, concrete and guard rails.
The understory of the bridge, however, is far from ordinary.
Poulsbo muralist Jim Mayo is using the walls beneath the bridge as a canvas for his latest project: A nature mural, with a Nordic flair, in Fish Park.
A river winds around a field and mountain peaks not unlike the Olympics across the horizon. On the bank of the river, a shield maiden leans on her sword and shield.
“He’s taking the theme of Fish Park and incorporating it into the bridge,” Mayor Becky Erickson said.
Artist Jim Mayo works on some fine points of the shield maiden on his nature mural under the Lindvig Way bridge. The passage under the bridge leads from Fish Park to the Liberty Bay estuary. — Image credit: Pete O’Cain
Mayo is perhaps best known in Poulsbo as the artist behind the Viking mural on the Boehm’s Chocolates building.
He was originally contracted by the city to paint give the bridge a troll theme, sort of Poulsbo’s answer to the Fremont Troll. But the former Army Ranger had a change of heart and switched to a nature theme to better match its surroundings. The understory of the bridge is a passageway from Fish Park to the estuary, where the main stem of Dogfish Creek flows into Liberty Bay.
“All the artwork I do, I do freehand. I do it straight out of my subconscious,” Mayo said. “It’s formed as I go. The composition is built around the walls. That’s why I felt like I had to expand upon this painting.”
His artistic audible changed the scope of the project considerably. He estimates his expanded mural is about the 70-80 percent larger than the original concept.
“I’m doing a lot more than I said I’d do,” Mayo said. “And I want to because that’s what the painting calls for.”
The mural is the latest amenity at Fish Park — the city’s largest at 21 acres. It’s the site of considerable wildlife habitat restoration involving non-profits, service organizations, businesses and volunteers. Past partners include the state Recreation & Conservation Office, the National Wildlife and Fish Foundation, the Great Peninsula Conservancy, the city, and the Suquamish Tribe, who had an ancestral village at the top of the bay in the mid-1800s.
Although the nature of the mural project changed in theme and size, Mayo’s pay will remain the same.
The contract pays Mayo $12,000, of which he’s received $5,000. He’ll receive the balance upon the project’s completion, according to Erickson.
Mayo expects the eastern wall to be finished soon and hopes to finish another mural on the western wall this month, featuring chum salmon. The second piece will have an emphasis on chum salmon.
Mayo had painted a bridge troll streetside but was dissatisfied with the work, so he replaced the troll with a salmon, a reflection of the new direction he’s taking the bridge mural project. — Image credit: Pete O’Cain
Cold temperatures have slowed his progress as of late, compounding the difficulty of the already complicated painting.
“This stuff isn’t like falling off a log,” Mayo said. “This is hard work.”
Mayo’s spent the past 25 years painting. While he’s certainly left his mark on several cities on the Olympic Peninsula, he’s not satisfied with everything he’s done. He considers the Fish Park mural a chance to improve his legacy.
“What I want representing me as an artist is not necessarily what I’ve painted,” Mayo said.
He’ll continue painting as long as he can.
“Painting murals, I suppose, is the only thing I’ll do until the day I die,” he added.
His hope is that the mural will become a hidden gem.
“That’s why I took this on, because I want to paint a great piece of artwork that you’ve got to go out of your way to go see,” Mayo said.
Shortly after he made the comment, a passerby marveled at the mural and then mentioned that it’s too bad no one will see it. Mayo smiled.
Artist Jim Mayo puts the finishing touches on a mural on the eastern wall under the Lindvig Way bridge in Poulsbo, Nov. 25. — Image credit: Pete O’Cain
A ‘grand-scale Van Gogh’
Mayo — referred to by the Peninsula Daily News as “a grand scale Van Gogh whose canvses are brick, concrete, wooden boards and stucco” — has painted murals on homes and commercial buildings from Sequim to Newport, Oregon.
He transformed the side of a wellness center in Port Townsend into a scene of a woman holding a lamb, backdropped by meadow and mountains. The exterior of a Sequim house is a forest and mountain scene, with a six-point buck on the shore of a lake. At another Sequim home, a bear emerges from a forest. A dolphin leaps from the waves on an exterior wall of an antique shop in Newport, Oregon. An eagle soars above the seaport waterfront in a mural in Port Townsend.
