Empty wall turns into big, positive art
Share
Tweet
Last updated 11/24/2020 at 8:39am
Three UFOs are tucked inside a new mural featuring details of a waving U.S. flag on the side of a metal garage on SR-174. Robert Fields, left, gestures toward the art that he and artist Keith Powell, right, finished in July. - Scott Hunter photo
Robert Fields has been wanting a big piece of art on the side of his garage facing the highway to Bridgeport for more than a decade, and he got it this summer in collaboration with his longtime friend and artist Keith Powell.
A closeup of a billowing American flag brings the steel siding on Fields' shop to life, the stripes undulating like the Palouse hillsides near Pullman, which is not what Fields had originally thought he'd get.
"I just got way more than I dreamed I would," said Fields, who has know Powell for 50 years and is now happy to have the "largest Keith Powell painting of any private citizen."
Fields had envisioned a painting of an eagle, and intended to lay down a red, white and blue "farmer style" himself, for Powell to paint an big eagle on.
The artist saw a different picture.
Together last May, the two stood outside the garage. Powell used a laser pointer to direct Fields where to stick marker tape, then left it to him to lay in the colors of the red, white and blue. Powelll came back later and added the depth, shading and nuance.
And he named it Three UFOs. Those are actually in there, not very noticeable as you drive by, an homage to Fields' father, Gene Fields, who had an interest in them that those close to him will understand.
Powell said that when he looked at the steel wall he just saw the waving Palouse. A corner of snowy mountains at upper right evokes the mountains to the north of us, he said.
The result has led many drivers stop alongside the highway to take photos, Fields said.
Reader Comments(0)