With the Alley Aquarium project, Rainbow Arts creates mural projects that invite artists of all ages who are new to making art on walls to join us. Tucked into alleys all over downtown, there are fish swimming along the walls, painted in wild colors by painters of all skill levels.
Olympia’s Rainbow Wings mural is intended to create a place of presence and belonging for the LGBTQ community and allies in the face of opposition to equal rights. As an interactive mural, it also offers a great backdrop for selfie photos. Now in its third location, the mural has been renamed. Migration of the Rainbow Wings. Each time, the mural painting was led by Chelsea Baker with a multi-racial team of painters including Regine Varughis, Darishma Alphonse, Anna Schlecht, Lola Lains e Silva, and others.
2024 | Artists: Chelsea Baker, Regine Varughis, and Anna Schlecht.
The design of the “Arc of Aging” mural affirms the presence of our community elders by acknowledging the stages of aging as all part of the same arc.
by Anna Schlecht | Published in OLYARTS on July 19, 2024
Lugwut was the final element of a larger mural called, Water People of the Shore painted in the Costal Salish tradition.
Lugwut is a figure from Salish tribal tradition that is similar to Big Foot or Sasquatch. The mural features a natural waterfront scene as background with a wide range of aquatic and shoreline animals of the Salish Sea depicted in the Coastal Salish style. This mural was painted by Nisqually artists Kyle Sanchez and his family along with Christopher Gerber.
Cowlitz tribal artist Sarah Folden worked with Chehalis tribal artist Jenée Redecker to paint an iconic image of ravens flying above a mountain, under a full moon in the contemporary Coast Salish tradition. Sarah and Jenee also brought on a team of youth apprentices, each of whom had some Native ancestry, including Adam Penn, Angelina Smart-Weber, Ayla Williams-Weber, Corbin Jones and Lola Lains e Silva.
The original “Great Wave Off Kanagawa” artwork was created by the Japanese woodblock print artist Hokusai in 1831. The 1977 recreation mural was created in Olympia, WA by artist Joe Tougas & friends, and the restoration was done in 2024 by artist Austin Michael Davis.