Finholm Marketplace TODAY
2015 photo courtesy of local photographer Dave Spencer
Finholm Marketplace and Mural in 2010
After over a decade of wear, the old mural (pictured above) located in the Finholm District of Gig Harbor was in terrible disrepair. The neon lights were burnt-out and the mural surface was crumbling. A restoration meant patching and painting over the landmark artwork.
In 2014, building owners Monte and Teddi (Finholm) Hester contacted me. They asked if their tiny 3 x 5-inch photograph of the marketplace (below) taken in 1935 could be reproduced. They wanted a new mural to honor Teddi’s father, Johnny. Brothers Johnny and Ed (far right below) ran the store together.
(click images to enlarge)
I had never painted a mural…. I was lucky to find local muralist, Bob Henry, on the internet. Bob is a long-time sign-painter and artist with over 35 years in the business who agreed to partner on the project. With him came scaffolding and technical experience that I lacked. He shared his tricks-of-the-trade and completed all the signs depicted in the mural. He painted all upper reaches of the 17-ft wall so I didn’t have to climb his free-standing (free-fall) scaffolds.
Similar to a fresco, the first step began by projecting my 12x24-inch line drawing (below) onto sixteen 4x12-ft sheets of paper. An electric pen was used to perforate the “cartoon” with tiny holes and a numbered grid system corresponding to wall sections was added to each sheet. Section-by-section, the paper templates were taped onto the concrete. A cloth bag of powdered charcoal was pounced over the perforated lines, thus transferring the drawing onto the textured wall. Once the paper was removed, the drawing was refined before blocking in the darks with latex paint.
The weather was a challenge hovering in the high 70s to mid-80s throughout the project that began on August 10, 2015. Direct sunlight heated the wall surface to well over 120 degrees. Paint dried on contact -- gumming up in the brushes like cottage cheese. Just after 3pm each day, the sun crested over the building and gave way to shade and cooler temperatures. A palette of 5 shades of gray and soft blended lines over the heavy-textured wall ended with 2 layers of satin anti-graffiti finish about a month later on September 26. A gathering of friends at the Finholm Marketplace on October 10, 2015 celebrated its completion.
(click on any image to enlarge)
Click thru Google Maps Street View (in process 2015)
If you are interested in purchasing a print of the Finholm Mural or cards, contact me.
A LITTLE HISTORY ON the Finholm DIstrict ...
The head of the bay business district included a post office, livery stable, general store, and real estate office. Around 1907, Swedish Captain Axel Uddenberg built his home and opened a meat market near this site. And although the hillside was sparsely populated with only about a dozen homes until the early 1920s, “Front Street” was a hub for early business development in the community. Axel built the existing store and the adjacent building that became the new the post office in 1929.
Young Johnny Finholm, son of Swedish immigrants from Finland, worked for Axel and later bought the store which he renamed Finholm’s Market in 1932. He (far right) and his brother Ed (far left) are pictured here circa 1935. The store was operated by the Finholms until 1979. The building sold and was repurchased by Monte and his wife, Teddi (the daughter of Johnny Finholm), in 2001.
In honor of the contributions to Gig Harbor by the Finholm brothers and their families and for the purpose of preserving the character of the town’s historic Finholm District, the Hesters restored the building and commissioned the mural in 2015.