After bringing color to downtown Bellingham’s Arts District for more than 30 years, the Centennial Mural on Prospect Street is coming down.
The mural, located near the Whatcom Museum above Maritime Heritage Park, depicts a large salmon and scenes of the Coast Salish Peoples and Bellingham settlers. The artwork was created by East Los Streetscapers in 1990 to help tell the environmental story of Whatcom Creek, as part of the city’s Whatcom Creek Salmon Art Trail.
Sonja Max, who owns the building the mural was painted on, said she’s chosen to remove it in order to maintain the wall underneath. Much of the paint from the mural had begun to peel and degrade, catching water, and creating cracks and spalling in the concrete. Removing that paint, she said, was necessary to fill the cracks and prevent leaks.
“If the paint was all intact and it was protecting my building, I would not be doing this — I love murals as much as the next person,” Max said. “I painted the building years ago, and we left the mural there and just sort of waited as long as we could.”
Some paint has already been pressure-washed and scraped away, and work will likely continue for the next few weeks.
While the mural’s farewell is sad news for many, Max said she hopes the wall can be used in a new and creative way in the future. Although she doesn’t have a plan set in stone yet, she does have some ideas.
“In a nod to the fact that we’re in a climate crisis, I think it’d be fitting to increase the amount of greenery downtown and make it a living wall of some kind and grow something on it,” Max said.
