A Bend in the River Mural
A collaborative project between artists Rochelle Rose-Schueler and Justyn Livingston
In January 2016, we were awarded the City of Bend’s prestigious 2015 Art, Beautification, and Culture (ABC) Award for this collaborative project.
2015 Bend, Oregon
“A Bend in the River” Mural for Habitat for Humanity ReStore
Design and concept by Justyn Livingston
Fabrication by Rochelle Rose-Schueler of Wild Rose Artworks along with volunteers from Habitat ReStore
In April 2014, I met with artist, Justyn Livingston (justynlivingston.com) who is a talented painter and tile artist, about a project that she was working on with architect, Stacey Stemach (stemachdesign.com). Stacey was designing the remodel of an old lumberyard building for the new owners, Habitat for Humanity ReStore. His design included using a lot of upcycled materials from the ReStore to give it a more urban industrial feel. On a significant portion of the exterior, he wanted to have ReStore volunteers install chunks of donated split cedar in a pattern to create waves and movement.
Stacey tasked Justyn to come up with a concept for a mural to cover a 35’ space on the outside walls of the new building above a portion of the split cedar wave siding. Her design was a metal assemblage mural of an aerial view of the Deschutes River flowing through Bend. Justyn contacted me to make a metal mosaic logo out of recycled pieces from the ReStore to “float” above her metal mural. In June, we each brought our sample boards to the Board of Directors and they accepted the project.
In December 2014 after I completed the logo, Justyn asked me if I wanted to collaborate with her on the fabrication of the metal assemblage mural. I agreed and we fabricated 2 of the 28 interlocking panels to see how everything fit together. We instructed the ReStore to have their volunteers cut and drill hundreds of pieces of metal and copper and start “stringing” them together in six foot strands to add to the mural panels. The project was put on hold for a period of time.
In August 2015, the project proceeded, but with a heavy heart my colleague had health issues and was unable to work on constructing the mural. I volunteered to fabricate the whole mural myself because I wanted to see her concept to completion. Scot Brees of the High Desert Maker Mill was kind enough to provide me workspace to spread out the 35’ mural.
In November 2015, I installed the mural and celebrated at the Grand Opening which Justyn was able to attend to see her vision finished and she is doing well now.
