Quarter-million dollar fund drive underway to make trompe l’oeil work on side of Elks Lodge part of Ashland’s future

By Art Van Kraft for Ashland.news

The unveiling of the final version of a major mural project in downtown Ashland was a big night for the local art scene. More than one hundred people crowded into the warehouse-sized studio of muralist John Pugh on Helman Street on Friday night.

They came to see Pugh’s vision for a mural that will adorn the Ashland Elks Lodge at 255 E. Main Street. That vision was not Pugh’s alone, but a compilation of ideas and historic facts that have created the community. Pugh said it was his job to combine these elements into a viable, living artwork.  

“It’s an opportunity to play with illusion and play with theatrics,” Pugh said. “It does fit in here in Ashland. One of the reasons I moved from Truckee to this town is there’s a bigger art scene here, percentage wise. There are artists, artisans, musicians, thespians and that makes an artistic climate. I’m connecting with this place and I think by doing a mural downtown it sinks my roots a lot deeper. It’s given me an opportunity to explore. Stanley and Livingston were looking for the source of the Nile, I’m looking for the source of enchantment.”  

The execution of the mural is designed to show not just the painting on the wall, but that something is happening to the wall. Pugh calls it very affective high illusion. 

“That illusion is foremost in my work,” Pugh said. 

Mark Nichols and his wife Buffy are originally from Idaho, but are now traveling the country in a camper.  They stopped in Ashland to visit friends and ended up at the studio event. 

“I was amazed at how this person took this flat surface and made it come alive and sent us into different dimensions. I could see how people could spend a lot of time reflecting on this as they drove by Ashland or walked into Ashland and said, ‘What is that?'” Mark Nichols said. 

Pugh said he admires the style of artist Maxwell Parrish and tried to capture that sense of enchantment Parrish paints.

“As I started developing the project more, I wanted to get those Maxwell Parrish colors in rocks and blues,” Pugh said. “Then we got rid of the blue, dropped some of the Parrish color, because that’s not the color of Lithia Park. Instead we painted a glen.” 

Pugh said his murals demand dedication and a dedicated staff. The work is done high up on scaffolding by local artists. 

Haley Logan is an artist who will be working on the new mural once it goes into production. She’s an art student at Rogue Community College and is on the team finishing the current project, a mural headed for the Denver Zoo. 

“I just started painting this year and I think mural painting is the career path I’m going on,” Logan said.  

Z is also an artist who will be on the Ashland project. Most days she is found up on the scaffolding finishing up the Denver Zoo project. She and the other artist will head out to the location as soon as the final stages are completed. She has been involved with local art projects for the last four years. 

“I think just being a part of a project like this is amazing,” she said.  

Jennifer Pell is an artist who is has been working at the studio for the last month and a half. She said the Ashland project brought her to the studio. “It’s very important to me to be a part of the mural here, I think it will be something I can be proud of,” she said. 

“The cultural significance of ‘This Village Where the Crow Lights,’ was there for thousands of years. A Shasta village was at the same place as Ashland Plaza and the Elizabethan Theatre. So, the mural is pushing open this curtain of the past. I think it’s an important part not just because of Ashland but for our souls … that we are nature,” Pugh said.

Pugh said he started reaching out to Indigenous sources for references when one source came to him. 

“I saw John’s presentation at my Rotary Meeting last winter. Ever since than I’ve been coming to the studio to give him feedback on the project and just to visit,” said Tiana Gilliand. 

Gilliand is enrolled in the Shasta Indian Nation, a tribe that has been involved with the mural project. She said she joined the project to help give authenticity by researching with local scholars. 

Gilliand says she conferred with Dr. Brook Colley, an professor of Native American Studies at Southern Oregon University, and David West, the now-retired Native American Studies director at Southern Oregon University. 

The Ashland mural project is a partnership between Pugh and the Elks, who donated the west wall of their building on Main Street for the mural. 

The unveiling of the new mural design coincides with the launch of the final fundraising phase for this project. A remaining $250,000 is needed to create the mural, which includes the prep of the wall, scaffolding and artists’ fees. 

The funds must come from private sources and the community, not city funding, since the mural is on private property and did not go through the request for proposal process.

Art Van Kraft is an artist living in Ashland and a former broadcast journalist and news director of a Los Angeles-area National Public Radio affiliate. Email him at artukraft@msn.com.