During the summer of 2022, my wife was searching for local activities our family could do, still coming out of the fog of our Covid stay-at-home days. She came across a community mural effort in our neighboring town of Lake Forest Park and signed us up.

We volunteered to help paint the mural on a Saturday. There, a young, still in high school, super energetic artist named Austin Picinich of Austin’s Awesome Art and the crew of Urban Artworks met us and over 100 other people to instruct us on painting a massive mural of bright red kokanee salmon. This mural was to be painted along barrier walls of a stream crossing where efforts were being made to protect the fishes’ habitat. Within that one day, the mural was mostly completed, leading to an exciting and rewarding experience.

The Western Fisheries Research Center (WFRC) sits on the throughfare for the second largest park in Seattle. Tens of thousands of people drive by our Center annually; however, with our nondescript buildings, it’s difficult for people passing by to know what goes on behind our walls. Further, we are a fenced property and haven’t had many opportunities to open our doors to the public.

Near the front of our Center property sits an old storage building that was in desperate need of a paint job. WFRC’s Dr. John Hansen suggested that we consider it as an art canvas, helping communicate to the public what we do at our Center. We discussed this and the need to engage our community, then gave Austin a call.

During the second week of July 2023, we hosted our own community mural effort. Over 300 locals volunteered to paint a mural that wrapped around all four sides of our storage building. All ages, from young children to seniors, and all skill levels were able to participate. Austin and the Urban Artworks team developed an amazing color-by-number strategy that started with large images for novices, then progressively moving to the final details for our more advanced painters. Within three days, the massive mural was complete!

One of our staff ran into a woman walking by our Center a couple of months after we completed the mural. They struck up a discussion about the mural. “I always wondered what you did in those buildings. Now I know.” the woman said.

Mission accomplished.

Happy holidays to all!

Michael Schmidt, Western Fisheries Research Center

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