Vancouver, USA Murals
I’m so lucky to have my office in downtown Vancouver, WA, USA. I’m a part of the Arts District, or at least I’m pretty close to it. Vancouver loves art and has installations throughout town. I’m including just a small amount of the murals that are around 6th street and Main, Washington, and Broadway.
What’s amazing about these murals is that they are everywhere. These 16 murals that I’ve uploaded here are only a small, very small, sample of everything that is around Vancouver. I found the website: ccmurals.org/murals/, hoping that I could get some information about these 16. Who painted them, the names of the pieces, and the history of ‘why these specific subjects?’ etc. And although some of my questions are not answered because websites have to be updated, etc, I do know that some of the murals depict moments in history.
For instance:
The second picture of my “Sweet 16 pictures” is of Lewis and Clark and a few of the images they saw when they came to our area on the Columbia River. The third picture shows the activity on the mighty Columbia River, the “fourth-largest [river] by volume in North America.” The seventh picture is the Yakama word for “the big river” (N’chi i wana) referring to The Columbia River along with a member of the Yakama Nation. And then we have the eighth picture that displays the Pearson Field and pilot Leah Hing, an “early Chinese American Woman Pilot.” She was born in 1907 in Portland (the small little Oregon town to the south of Vancouver). She trained at Pearson Airfield in Vancouver, becoming the first U.S.-born Chinese-American woman to receive her pilot’s license in 1934.
What I love about these murals of Lewis and Clark, the Columbia River, the Yakama Nation, and Leah Hing’s female empowerment, is that each one has a story of strength and endurance behind them. Whether it is clearly inside the picture by depicting an important historical milestone, or inside the artist by depicting something they feel is crucial to our community, the sense of action, pride, and achievement flows powerfully across the brick walls and through the many colors of paint.
Thank you, Vancouver, for these beautiful works of art.
And my thanks to these websites for the information to write this blog post:
https://www.nps.gov/people/leahhing.htm
https://www.nwcouncil.org/reports/columbia-river-history/columbiariver/
https://www.ccmurals.org/murals/mural-maps/
https://www.visitvancouverwa.com/listing/clark-county-murals/2762/
