26 years to some is not a long time and to others, it can be a lifetime. If you are a person in your mid-twenties, you still have the world to conquer. If you have 26 years’ experience on the job, you are likely one of the experts everyone turns to. If you are a mural painted on the side of RJ’s Tavern, now Quarry Taphouse, 26 years is one heck of a run.
The mural of Hastings painted by David Youngren and Tim Blough was started in the spring of 1998 and finished in September of that year, 26 years ago. At that time, Sherwin Williams donated the house paint, there was a concert held to raise money for the mural project called Mural Aide, there was still a Rivertown Days parade and folks walked the sidelines of that collecting money to help fund the mural as well.
“We made three dollars and 35 cents an hour on that project,” laughed Youngren.
“Are you sure?” quipped Blough.
Both comments were made tongue in cheek, talking about the funds they received for painting a mural in their hometown. It’s clear that the driving factor behind these two painting the mural was their friendship, a love for art, doing a project together and creating something special for their hometown.
“We were in school together, and I went off to art school in Minneapolis, and Tim went west to California,” said Youngren. “It was many, many years before we saw each other again. And Tim was kind of like the one that was the driver that said, you ever do a mural? I'm like, Heck, no. He goes, neither have I, let's try it.”
So, they did.
“The thing that we had going for ourselves was we had a really good mix that I was a designer, Tim was an artist in itself with a painter, and so we kind of played off of each other's strengths totally. And not that we always agreed, but we had a really good way of saying, well, let's have a beer and talk about it,” added Youngren.
That ability to discuss ideas openly led them to doodling a concept on a napkin to start things off and that led them to the concept painting of the mural. They did the best they could to scale it down, the initial painting was scaled to one inch on the canvas was one foot on the 160-foot wall.
The two spent the entire summer of 1998 painting the mural, completing the project in September. The process was something they needed to experience to understand the quirks of a long-term outdoor painting project.
“When we started painting, we would start around eight o’clock in the morning,” said Youngren. “The sun rose behind the building and as soon as it came over the top of the building, we were blinded because of all the bumps in the stucco. We could not tell where we had painted, it all turned white.”
“It was so crazy,” added Blough. “We were looking right into the sun too because we were looking up to paint.”
That forced the duo to take refuge inside RJ’s for a few hours until the angle of the sun changed enough to be able to see again. Listening to the side chatter around this particular piece of information, it did not sound like it was much of a disappointing delay and that it was more so an opportunity to grab a few beverages and lunch.
So, why now? Why replace the mural now?
“It is a ghost mural now, it is so thin,” explained Blough.
The wall itself is in need of repair, it is mostly stuccoing issues, but the wall itself needs to be fixed. Minnesota winters are harsh on cement-like surfaces, especially thin coats of stucco. Additionally, the mural colors are extremely faded, so it is time to refresh the wall and let someone else leave their mark on the Hastings community for another quarter of a century.
In the past 26 years, technology has improved a lot of the facets of this particular item in town. Mural paint is now a thing instead of just using exterior house paint. Even exterior house paint has had dramatic improvements with UV protection included to help prevent fading. The construction methods for the wall have improved with much better expansion joints and better compounds for the actual surface.
The work to repair the wall has already begun and the hope is to have the wall repaired by the end of October. That gives plenty of time for a new mural to begin in the spring of 2025. There are a few ideas of what they want to put on the wall as the new mural, nothing they want to discuss at this time since it is in the early stages of planning. Randy Stenger, owner of the Quarry Taphouse explained they want to do something to help bring tourism to Hastings and still have that small town charm, but it will all come down to costs.
Who will the artists be? Are Youngren and Blough interested in doing it? Stenger said he would love to have them do it, but the two artists gave the impression of being too old and not interested in adding to their tallies of falling from the lift.
With the two artists joking aside, Stenger hopes to find a local artist to do the mural.
“I think the goal is to find a local artist, we would love to find some local artists. So that's why we'll work with the Arts Council here to see if we can identify someone. And obviously I think I'll leverage you, Dave, you would know better than I would on what it takes to do all that and what's possible,” said Stenger.
The bottom line is, the mural has lasted 26 years and by this time next year, Hastings will be looking at a new piece of art as they cross the Mississippi River on Highway 61.