Creating history in time for festival
<p>Barbara Beighle puts the final touches of a mural on the east wall of Downtown Bakery on Saturday. Her father is a retired opthamologist Dick Beighle, who owns an orchard on Finley Point.</p>
POLSON – Barbara Buchli spent the last three weeks in the hot Polson sun perched on a hydraulic lift with a paint brush in her hand.
The professional artist and a few dedicated volunteers, are creating a one-of-a-kind mural to showcase Polson and some of its beautiful scenery.
Flathead Cherry Festival Council came up with the idea and Barbara’s father, Dick Beighle, a Finley Point resident, is on the board.
Lake City Bakery owner Marilyn Humphrey donated Buchli’s canvas.
“Originally the Cherry Council was going to have an art teacher and his students do the mural but when that fell through my dad asked me to step in,” Buchli said.
The Montana native, now working as a mural artist in Denver and Boston, put her paying customers on hold to travel to Polson and volunteer the many hours needed to complete the mural before the 2014 Polson Cherry Festival.
“I don’t know how many hours I’ve put into it,” Buchli said. “I stopped counting.”
But the mural will be complete by July 17, just in time for this year’s festivities.
Buchli said she’s had many visitors come by to admire or comment on the mural on the alley-side wall of Lake City Bakery.
Every day after 2 p.m., Buchli and her helpers bear the heat and begin their work.
“I came up with the design and am still in the process of designing it,” Buchli said. “As we go along we’ve been changing it.”
Though the team is moving closer to deadline, Buchli said every day her creation changes and reveals itself in more colorful and creative ways.
Before it is complete, Buchli said she plans to add a tiny bit of whimsy to the Polson piece to give it that little special touch that showcases her personality, honors the fun-loving happiness of her father, the Cherry Festival and the valley.