PORT ANGELES — Vegetables are marching in line from the garden to the soup pot in a nearly complete 86-foot mural inside the Port Angeles Food Bank.
The mural at 402 S. Valley St., by tattoo, graffiti and mural artist Jimbo Cutler, is one step toward making the food bank less institutional and more welcoming to those who need help, said Jessica Hernandez, executive director of the food bank.
The mural depicts “the life of vegetables,” beginning with a growing garden and following the vegetables happily making their way to a large soup pot where they lounge as if in a hot tub.
Hernandez said the food bank provided about $120 in paint and materials, and Cutler donated his time.
“He’s a phenomenal guy,” she said.
Members of the public are invited to stop in and see the mural between 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Tuesdays and Thursdays, during hours when food distribution is not in progress.
Donations and volunteer applications will be accepted during those hours, Hernandez said.
Food distribution takes place 1 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, and volunteers are busy preparing for distribution on those mornings, she said.
Hernandez said the artwork is as welcoming for single adults as it is for young families.
She said that when she took over as director in January 2014, the inside of the food bank was sterile and institutional.
“Our customers are not exactly happy to be here to ask for help,” she said, and the surroundings did not help matters.
Those who came to the food bank were faced with a long, sterile wall the length of the building, Hernandez said.
They walk the entire length of the wall to receive donated goods, stopping at the canned and boxed food station, a bakery section, dairy boxes, a meat freezer and vegetable tables.
Hernandez spotted Cutler’s work on a Facebook page.
Among his work was a house exterior he painted with a giant depiction of art from Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are.
That kind of cheerful welcome was the kind of thing Hernandez was looking for.
“It’s the first thing they see when they walk in the door,” she said.
Hernandez said her initial idea for the wall was graffiti-style artwork similar to some of Cutler’s other projects.
Cutler, who recently moved to Port Angeles from Los Angeles, Calif., visited the food bank to see the wall, then returned home to sketch ideas.
He came back the next day with a proposal to create a more traditional mural instead of graffiti-style work, Hernandez said.
The project has taken three months, as Cutler also worked to open a new tattoo shop, Port Angeles Tattoos, at 416 E. First St., Suite 202.
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Reporter Arwyn Rice can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5070, or at arice@peninsuladailynews.com.
