PORT ANGELES – With soft rags and acetone, two Nor’wester Rotary Club volunteers and two city workers on Tuesday wiped away paint that defaced a City Pier mural of the Klallam village of Y’ennis.
The four men, Doc Reiss and Ted Groves with the Rotary Club and Brian Flores and Leon Leonard with the city of Port Angeles, removed the black paint which on Thursday night was sprayed on the mural on the outside of the Arthur D. Feiro Marine Lab.
The paint blacked out Native American faces, and was used to write obscenities, a declaration of “white power” and a crudely drawn “devil face.”
The faces of the people in the painting are based on real members of the Lower Elwha Klallam tribe, many of whom are still alive.
Port Townsend artist Cory Ench, who painted the mural in 1998 for the Nor’wester Rotary Club, plans to evaluate the remaining damage and make any needed repairs early next year, Reiss said.
“If you didn’t know it was damaged, you wouldn’t notice now,” Reiss said.
“But there are some flecks of black paint in there, and Cory can tell us if anything else should be done to repair it or do touch-ups.”
In Washington state, artists hold some proprietary rights to works of art, so the Rotary Club had to get permission from Ench before they could begin cleaning up the painting.
