Mural artist puts another stamp on Evans City
EVANS CITY — Not content with leaving any major surface in the borough blank, Barry Spithaler this time turned his artistic attention to a storage container that has been in the EDCO Park & Pool parking lot for decades.
Now when people drive by the lot, visible from West Main Street in Evans City, they can more easily tell there is a pool nearby.
“The container’s been sitting here for years,” said Evans City Mayor Dean Zinkhann. “A lot of people ride by and don’t know there is a pool there.”
Spithaler, who grew up in Evans City and now lives in Wexford, completed a mural depicting swimmers on a blue background on the storage container on July 7, after a few mornings and nights of work — when the sun was not beating down. The painter’s previous work for the borough was a mural depicting Evans City history — from its railroad to “Night of the Living Dead” — on the silo at the Evans City Library. This project was more of a practical job.
“I grew up here — I’m all over the place,” Spithaler said of his marks on the borough. “I just wanted it to look nice.”
The storage container at the parking lot has always been there for the borough to keep its pool supplies in. Zinkhann said staff members load the chairs, tables and flotation equipment in and out of the unit when the pool opens and closes for the season.
It’s structural shape presented a challenge to Spithaler, who was already a bit of a fish out of water for the project because his main subject for art is landscapes and cityscapes. However, he was able to use a projector to show a photo on the container and trace over it as a reference.
The image wraps around the bumps and grooves of the container, but looks good when viewed from a few yards away.
“It isn’t easy,” Spithaler said of painting a storage container. “The container doesn’t take paint the way a canvas does.”
Zinkhann even did his part by painting the water onto the container, covering it with blue so Spithaler had the background already taken care of. Once that was done, Spithaler would visit the container at around 6 a.m. each day to paint, finishing up around 9 a.m. once it started heating up. He would sometimes return at night to get more painting done — anything to stay out of the heat, which also caused the paint to dry quickly.
Spithaler said he wouldn’t normally model one of his paintings using a projection, but he wanted the people in the image to look good because it would be public art. He said painting on the silo at the library presented a similar challenge, so he was prepared to work on an oddly shaped canvass this time.
“I just wanted it to look good,” Spithaler said.
Zinkhann said the borough has not paid Spithaler for his work as of yet, but he personally covered some of the artist’s supply expenses. Zinkhann said he may also ask the Evans City Lions Club for money to pay Spithaler for his services.
Despite having no promise of being paid, Spithaler said he wasn’t worried about the money. He grew up in Evans City and lived there until he was around 20 years old. He said being able to add public art to his hometown is a nice way to stay active.
“It’s a lot of work,” Spithaler said. “I’ve sold some paintings. People ask to buy them so I have them all over.”
Zinkhann said he may ask Spithaler to do more paintings in the borough in the future. It just depends on when he or the borough decide on which surface to cover next. While Spithaler was a little self-conscious about the humans he painted on the storage container unit, as well as his future in painting people, Zinkhann reassured him that his work was making a difference in Evans City.
“You do such a lovely job for the town,” Zinkhann told Spithaler.
