ALMA — An abstract wood mural titled Alma: Doorway to the Ozarks that’s hanging in the lobby of the renovated police station is aptly named.
For one thing, the Crawford County town of 5,400 sits on the southern border of the Ozark Mountains. And the26-by-6 ½ -foot mural was made out of 15 office doors that were no longer needed after a renovation project turned City Hall into the police station.
Police Chief Russell White said the Police Department was looking to cover a large wall of the cavernous lobby with some type of decorationand had contacted Fayetteville artist and University of Arkansas art instructor Matthew Meers, who is acquainted with one of his officers.
“We didn’t have any furniture in here and nothing onthis huge wall, this huge blank thing,” White said.
White, Meers and others were standing in the lobby discussing possible materials for the mural last December.White said he jokingly told Meers that if he was looking for material, he could take the nearby stack of 30 interior office doors that was getting in the way of the constructionwork.
White said the 35-yearold doors were going to be thrown out because the doors that were needed for the renovation did not match the existing doors.
Meers laughed at the remark. “But then, I thought that wasn’t a bad idea. And that also led to the title,Doorway to the Ozarks,” hesaid.
About six months after that meeting, on June 1, Meers carted in the finished mural in 83 pieces that make up the abstract map of Alma. He assembled the mural in the lobby and hung it on the wall.
The department was planning an open house to unveil the newly expanded police station - and to show off the mural - after the annual Christmas parade downtown Dec. 7, White said. But a snowstorm forced the cancellation of the parade and postponement of the open house.
He said the department now might have the open house in January.
White said he hasn’t had much feedback from residents about the mural. He’s noticed from watching video of surveillance cameras in the lobby that the mural gets people’s attention. Many stare at it, as if trying to figure out what it depicts. Sometimes a department employee will wander through and enlighten the observer, he said.
Usually, all it takes is for someone to point out that the wide sweeping lines in the middle of the mural are Interstate 40 and Interstate 540 and people get the idea, he said.
“Once it got here, I was real pleased with it,” White said. “I was skeptical, I’ll be honest, because I’m not an art guy. And I don’t see things that way. Things are seldom gray with me. They’re black and white, and straight and square.”
Meers said he used Google Earth map as a guide in creating the mural.
Initially, he said, he planned for the mural to be about 4 feet by 2 feet but that the low-resolution Google map that he used didn’t provide enough detail. He got a high-resolution map, which allowed for a larger mural detailing streets, waterways, furrows and fields, and Meers traced those elements onto each piece of wood.
Using a jigsaw and a small router, Meers cut and etched the various features. Where he cut through the wood, he cut at an angle so that the mural would appear to stand out nearly 2 inches from the wall.
“It was a fairly simple process,” he said. “The logistics of setting everything up properly to execute the work wasthe hardest part.”
He said he began working on the mural in February and finished putting it up on the Police Department lobby wall on June 1.
He did the work in his two-car garage at home. He worked on the mural as many hours as he could during the week, given his job at the university and family commitments. He said he put in eight to 10 hours on the weekends and estimated that he devoted a total of 300 to 350 hours to the project.
Meers has created artworks using various media, including metals, glass, stone and stoneware, and has worked with wood before. He said he had never done a wood piece quite like theAlma mural, but he liked the learning experience.
“Every project needs to be a challenge,” he said.
White said Meers was paid a little more than $5,500 for the mural, which was still cheaper than if the department had bought framed artwork for the walls, “even at Hobby Lobby.”
Meers’ money came out of the $650,000 construction budget, White said.
The project included renovating, modernizing and expanding the City Hall building to accommodate the Police Department. Offices previously in City Hall since 1978 moved to other buildings nearby, he said. The city courtroom remains in the City Hall building.
Northwest Arkansas, Pages 7 on 12/30/2013