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Mural beckons tourists to downtown Polson

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POLSON — Images of cherry blossoms; a vintage car; powwow dancers; tipis; and an artist painting, will soon grace the eastern outside wall of Lake City Bakery. The symbols were chosen to represent major summer events in the Polson area, including Polson’s car show; the Standing Arrow Powwow; the Sandpiper Gallery’s Outdoor Art Festival; and the Flathead Cherry Festival. These symbols will soon be part of a mural beautifying Polson. 

Mural artist Barbara Beighle-Buchli will begin the project “as soon as the rain quits,” she said. 

From what she knows about the project, the Flathead Cherry Festival people wanted to brighten up downtown Polson. They also wanted something visible that might slow down traffic driving through and convince them to stay a while since economic times have been tough for many people and businesses in Polson.

Bakery owner Marilyn Humphrey liked Beighle-Buchli’s design best, but really,  “My father got me into this whole project,” Beighle-Buchli said.

While the artist’s dad might have talked her into the project, her parents, Bernice and Dick Beighle, also primed the wall white in preparation for the mural. 

She sees the brick wall, with its rough textured surface and windows, as a challenge. 

Beighle-Buchli tried to project her design on the pre-primed wall but the city streetlights were too bright, so she’ll have to hand draw it. 

She says she has about a half-dozen volunteers to help her, but many of them are part-time since they also hold down other jobs. Beighle-Buchli plans on completing the mural before the Flathead Cherry Festival begins on July 19, if the weather cooperates.

“I’m so glad they are going to do it,” Humphrey said. 

Two of Humphrey’s waitress, Kim Dempsey and Leilani Faialaga, plan on helping to paint the mural. The Flathead Cherry Festival committee is buying the supplies.

As a life-long artist, Beighle-Buchli laughs as she recalls her first “mural” — a masterpiece on her mother’s dining room wall using squished tomatoes when she was two years old.

With a degree in communications from the University of Montana, Beighle-Buchli continued on to advertising design, advanced oil painting, studying art from schools, museums and great painters. She also became a professional caricaturist. Inspired by murals in a Spanish castle, Beighle-Buchli began a mural business, Off the Wall Murals. Some of her clients included the Boston Celtics, Paramount Pictures, Gold’s Gym, Smirnoff Vodka and the Denver Broncos, according to her resume.

After living and working in Boston, Beighle-Buchli moved to Denver and usually spends the winters at her folks’ place on Finley Point, but she’s never been in the Polson area during cherry season.

 “It’s not my mural. It’s about Polson; it’s for Polson,” she said.

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