By Mary Owen
Local artist Paul Toews has captured a slice of Sublimity history in his recently completed work.
Toews’ mural, “Shaping the Future,” now hangs on the inside wall of The Grove in downtown Stayton, but will soon hang on the outside wall of the new addition to Sublimity Lumber Supply.
“This new building sits on the site of what at one time was an essential center of Sublimity – the blacksmith shop,” said Toews, hailed by many for his art and teaching skills. “Henry Mutchler owned the shop until it closed its doors in 1953.”
Toews said the mural weathered a number of setbacks, including his recent major heart surgery, but is now ready to be unveiled to the community.
“I didn’t take the easy road on this project,” he said. “In order to create the effect I was after, of looking from the outside into the interior of a room full of the busy assortments of an active blacksmith shop, I had to establish ‘a tricky perspective.’”
Toews also accepted the challenge of implementing an old style of creating light that comes primarily from a point within the center of the scene.
“A Renaissance method sometimes referred to as the Chiaroscuro effect,” he explained. “In this case, illuminating from the flames of the forge.”
According to Toews, the city’s former mural organization, an active group of citizens, and SCTC was involved in getting the mural going.
“Things unforeseen happened and the group dissolved,” Toews said, “but not before this mural got started.”
Freres Building Supply has been instrumental in keeping the project going, he added.
“Dan Goodman, who owns both stores in Stayton and Sublimity, has generously covered the supplies to this point,” Toews said. “Four other people have independently contributed a total of $1,000. I estimate the total cost to be about $6,000.”
People in the know have been all a-twitter about the project actually coming to fruition.
“People keep coming by to comment and critique,” said Toews, who encourages their input.
With help from the Marketplace, Toews will official unveil the mural at a showing and reception at his studio, Art Gone Wild, 349 N. Third Ave., Stayton, March 26, 5;30 to 7:30 p.m. with a mural reveal at 6:30 p.m. Moxieberry will serve dinner by reservation that evening only. Menu and times will be announced on Facebook.
“I will also be showing other works of art as well,” said Toews, whose roots are in the country, in the fields of his parents’ farm, nestled among the foothills of the Cascade.
“I learned the pride of hard work and practical wisdom,” he said. “Along the wooded ridges bordering those fields and the hedgerows that ran through them, I soaked in the poetry of nature.”
Once a timberman, visual art and storytelling compelled Toews to express himself more and more, he said.
“This all started sometime before 2000 with a close call in the woods,” he added. “Since then, I have learned more, taught more, painted more and written more than all those previous years combined.”
Toews’ art has been shown at the illustrated Gardens Gallery in Corvallis, Soda Creek Gallery in Sisters, and the Elsinore Theatre and Bush Barn in Salem.
“I have done paint nights, workshops at place such as the Alamo in San Antonio, the mountain country of northern Idaho, and in Franklin, Mass.,,” said Toews.
For information, call Toews at 503-509-8292.
