Yelm’s newest piece of artwork was unveiled on Tuesday, Feb. 18, just outside of Yelm Community Center, as Mural Mosaic’s Global Roots project unveiled its “America Connects Family Time” mosaic to be displayed for the community.
Line Roy, the City of Yelm’s communications and recreation coordinator, was thankful to see both the vibrant artwork and the collaboration of communities to make it happen. She was also grateful for Mural Mosaic’s efforts in bringing new artwork to Yelm.
“You can’t get more local art than this,” Roy said. “They’re painted by people right here — your neighbors, your friends, the people you see at the store and walking down the street. How cool is that to see everybody come together to make something so beautiful and iconic?”
Roy said the City of Yelm partnered with Mural Mosaic, based in Canada, to bring the additional artwork to fruition. It cost a total of $6,000. According to Roy, the Canadian business does six murals in a season, and chooses six different communities to display their artwork in.
Yelm applied for the Mural Mosaic’s artwork back in October, and Roy said the city was notified in early November that it had been selected.
“At that point, it was time for the community to put their footprint on it. If you look at our mural, about 50 of these squares are from people right here in Yelm. Their squares will also be in the other five communities that were chosen in this season,” Roy said. “It’s super neat to see how this connects the other communities. They all form different paintings (across the five other cities) but the micro-portion of the murals in the other cities are the same. The tiny squares, if you move them around, form different big pictures. Boy, isn’t that a reflection on our world?”
Each participant in Mural Mosaic’s project received painting kits to decorate their tiles. Each kit featured a color scheme — such as blue, purple, green, red and others — and instructions on how much each color should be featured.
Once the artwork was completed and submitted, Roy said Mural Mosaic pieced the artwork together to form the mural.
“They’re the ones who see the big picture,” Roy said.
The city’s newest artwork was unveiled and celebrated outside Yelm Community Center on Tuesday, Feb. 18, and Roy said the ceremony went great. Mayor Joe DePinto welcomed those in attendance, and a member of Mural Mosaic spoke about the project.
“Two of the people from the company in Canada flew down for the unveiling, and some of the artists who have their art in other community murals came to see their art in ours,” Roy said. “It was great to have people from outside the community come in to see it. We had some of the local artists here too.”
Roy was one of around 50 community members who participated in the project and painted a tile to be included in the mural. In her artwork, she honors her two late dogs, Rocky and Ruby.
“They were my two dogs who have since passed. I have a picture of them in front of the water tower, and used them as my inspiration,” Roy said. “I also learned that I am not an artist, but they’re a piece of Yelm history forever.”
Roy added that Yelm’s Public Services department did a great job of installing the mural, even after dealing with a couple of last minute changes to the project — including a new location.
“I’d like to give a big thank you to our Public Services department,” Roy said. “There was a little bit of turmoil. But they’re amazing and they got it done.”
