A Wall That Speaks
Lura Wilhelm’s Mural Uplifts and Unites…
The newest public artwork in downtown Redding is really something to see.
A towering mural composed in vivid colors and depicting a series of scenes of community, connection and care now graces the east of side of Shasta Community Health Center on Continental Street. Muralist Lura Wilhelm designed and delivered a statement that begins among indigenous plant life and rises to the heights of human aspiration.
Brandon Thornock, the health center CEO, says Wilhelm’s was immediately the most promising design submitted in response to his leadership team’s request for proposals. “For me, the ‘wow’ moment was when I saw the outreach of hands,” he describes, “especially the one hand elevating an elderly individual with somebody younger walking alongside, and the face looking on with this look of peace, and yet an element of concern.”
For him, the vision is personal. “This is the way I view the world, how the true meaning of life is reflected in the way we support each other,” he continues. “And when I see these actions being a bridge for one person to connect to another, or to connect to resources in today’s world where it’s so divisive at all levels, I think this is where we should be headed as a nation, as a city, as a people, as an organization.”
That connection repeats throughout the mural. Over here, you see a group of people, likely a family, reaching out to each other while framed below by blue foliage, and above by a blue mountaintop. Over there, a couple holds hands while riding bicycles, an act nearly obscured by a tree, its trunk taking the eye downward to more vegetation and ultimately to the connection with the earth itself.
Indeed, the words of the artist herself, embossed on a nearby dedication plaque, leave little room for misinterpretation of her grand opus. An excerpt: “It serves as a reminder that it is through connection to each other and to this land that we build a thriving, supportive and compassionate Redding.”
All of Wilhelm’s work begins and ends with this connection to the land – from her first commission, a detailed study of bird life for Turtle Bay, to her most recent, a cat and dog each painted on the back walls of adjacent exam rooms at Redding Veterinary Clinic. This, her only local indoor mural, depicts indoor pets, yet frames and silhouettes them with brightly colored leaves.
For whatever she paints, this accomplished muralist strives to not bore. “I work with the subject matter that my clients want and then from there, I really express a lot with my color palette, and I put a few design elements into it so it flows,” she says.
Wilhelm is one of those artists who cannot remember when they weren’t an artist. “I was always drawing when I was young and so I thought everybody drew all the time,” she recalls from age 7. “How I played was I would draw. I’d always have a pencil and a notepad, even it if had lines on it. I was always drawing.”
That young girl developed a trait to help her draw on highway drives to and from family visits between California and Montana. “There’s a bunch of sagebrush on the road and I’m drawing like straight lines that didn’t look exactly like a bush because we were going by so quickly,” she says. “So I would have to remember and retain what it looked like and keep drawing, which is something I’m applying to my current work.” For her mural work, that something was painting doodles on a 30-foot stucco wall then filling in detail, with brush and roller, from memory.
During the single month it took her to finish this overarching achievement, CEO Thornock marveled at how the very process demonstrated the theme. “She brought in some of her associates. She would draw some outlines, get into her big lift to get up to the high areas, then they would come in and fill in the blocked areas, which really helped her to get this immense work done in a short time frame,” he says. “Isn’t that the reflection of people coming together and supporting one another?”
Wilhelm’s team has a name, Artrageous, coined by retired art teacher and Artrageous member Elizabeth Brown. Other members filling in were retired art teachers Tami Watson, Torri Pratt and Sandy Fisher, as well as, Kathy Trueblood, who along with Wilhelm, still teaches art at University Preparatory School. Artrageous is a group of friends who meet weekly and travel once a year together, to anywhere from Barcelona to Santa Fe, all in pursuit of their love of art.
Today, CEO Thornock delights in entering Shasta Community Health Center through a secured door located pretty much dead center in the mural. A couple of weeks ago, while walking to that door, he saw what he took to be grandparents walking with their small grandson. The boy pointed at all the shapes and colors and people in the artwork.
“You could see on his face the awe and wonder as he was pointing at the different images, and I could see the grandmother explaining to him, and I thought, what a sweet, sweet moment.” Thornock says. “This is what we did here. It’s doing exactly what we wanted it to, convey the message of community and the importance of helping one another. Here was this family enjoying the moment because of this beautiful mural.”•
