June 03, 2003
Artists Seek to Restore City's Murals
Last month I had a brief item about the battles between murals and the city's sign code.
Today's Oregonian takes a look at one aspect of the city's murals that avoids conflict with that code -- namely, the restoration of existing murals:
City permit rules adopted in 1998 have stifled new large murals while many of the old ones are cracking and fading. Metro Murals co-chairwoman Leslie Rosenberg said those trends threaten to leave city thoroughfares dominated by commercial signs with little visual relief.
The city's murals, Rosenberg said before the dedication of Cramer's refurbished mural last week, "are kind of like these endangered species that are dying off."
Currently, Metro Murals is working on the restoration of a mural at North Williams Avenue and Shaver Street, which takes up "about 1,500 square feet on the concrete-block exterior of Scientific Research, a precision metal fabricator in business since 1978." Possible plans for the future include a mural at SE 39th Avenue and Division, which I can only assume is the one facing the Rite-Aid parking lot.
The city's code on Signs and Related Regulations can be found here, although I'm not sure if there are additional permitting rules somewhere else.