Mural Festival Wrapping Up

7/3/17 – There are still a few loose ends to tie-up but for the most part, the Decorate the Dam Walldogs Mural Festival is over. Most of the 15 murals depicting the history of Beaver Dam were completed on Saturday though there were a couple that needed to be finalized yesterday, including the veterans mural on Beaver Dam Paint and Glass and the triangular Williams Free Library mural on the community library. Walldog founder and event leader Nancy Bennett says (quote) “everything went great, Beaver Dam really stepped up to the plate and was a fantastic town to have a mural meet.” The rain did result in some minor paint streaking but it was all quickly fixed. The primer on the Watermark had not yet dried when Wednesday’s rains moved in and showers also streaked paint on the Dodge County Fair/Moraine Park Technical College mural on Ming’s Chinese restaurant. Also, a passing weekend downburst hit the Cigelski site at the city’s southernmost edge but the system apparently lost steam before affecting any downtown murals. Beaver Dam Area Arts Association Executive Director and Walldog Jessalyn Braun says the acrylic paint used dries quickly enough and then it’s just a matter of painting over the streaks. There is one mural that is not in downtown Beaver Dam and that is the one painted on Cigelski’s Transmissions and it also is the biggest. That mural has a local racing theme and an homage to Beaver Dam-native Fred MacMurray along with a “Welcome To Beaver Dam” logo all next to a separately-commissioned small mural for Cigelski’s business. Owner Don Cigelski sacrificed a large but faded mural that had been promoting his business so that the historic downtown murals could be also promoted. Cigelski says it is way more amazing than he expected and while the computer generated image looked good the real thing will just blow you away. He says other people must agree with him because he has not gotten much work done in the shop in the past couple days. Cigelski says he “does not know a lot of people like Bill McCollum does” but he says he can’t walk outside his business without spending ten minutes chatting with people who are enjoying the mural. There are still a few organizational matters to be squared away like general cleanup and removing and retuning scaffolding and ladders. Also, a protective clear coat is being applied to the murals. Supplies ran low so some of the bigger murals, like the one at Cigelski’s, will be finished when more bottles of clear coat are received. Finally, two murals that had been painted on panels need to be relocated, which will happen as early as this weekend.