Old painting, new strokes: Local artists restore downtown Olympia’s ‘Great Wave’ mural
Artist Austin Davis was a high schooler in Yelm when he first saw downtown Olympia’s mural of “The Great Wave off Kanagawa,” which has stood on Fourth Avenue at the foot of Budd Inlet for almost 50 years.
After that, he saw it on every trip he took to the city. The recreation of the famous Japanese woodblock print by Katsushika Hokusai was such an inspiration to Davis, he took his senior portrait in front of it. Over a decade later, he was chosen to restore it.
Alongside Joe Tougas, the artist who painted the mural in 1977, Davis repainted it from mid-July to early August.
“What speaks to this mural is just how all of these different worlds collide under one unifying image,” Davis told The Olympian. “And we’re all inspired and connected through this image.”
Davis and Tougas did the restoration in partnership with the Japanese American Citizens League’s Olympia chapter and the non-profit Rainbow Community Arts.
Now repainted, the mural is to be rededicated to Olympia’s Japanese American community in September.
“The image of Hokusai’s ‘Great Wave’ is probably one of the most recognizable pieces of Japanese art in the world,” Reiko Callner, JACL Olympia board member, told The Olympian. “It’s beautiful, and it’s very eye-catching, and it’s dramatic. And so its existence on that wall for these many, many years that it’s been there has been a really beloved feature of the community.”
The old painting
Creativity, openness and a broader vision of the world through art. That was the image the businesses moving into Childhood’s End Gallery in the late ‘70s wanted to project. Back then, that part of downtown Olympia was so rundown, people wanted nothing to do with it.
To change that, the businesses decided to paint a mural.
Tougas was the owner of one of those businesses — Buffalo Signs, a sign-painting shop — and a co-owner of the building. When the business owners got together to design the mural, he suggested they recreate “The Great Wave off Kanagawa.”
There were two reasons. One, the print projected the exact image the businesses wanted. Two, the content of the print: fishermen hunkering down in boats designed to cut through waves that, at first glance, seem to be sweeping them away.
“That was an aspect of the image that I particularly liked. This idea that we were the newcomers, and we’re coming into this kind of hazardous situation,” Tougas told The Olympian, “But, through our art, we’re able to commit to making changes in this building and in this neighborhood that would overcome the resistance.”
Tougas is a multidisciplinary artist specializing in murals and woodcarvings. He painted this mural alongside Bill and Richenda Richardson, the other co-owners of the building, and volunteers from Olympia.
According to Japanese woodblock tradition, the names of the print and the artist behind it are inscribed on the mural in kanji. While painting, Tougas worked with members of JACL Olympia to ensure the kanji was correct.
The paint used for that kanji, as well as Tougas’ signature and the year the mural was completed, remains today.
“There has been this connection with the mural and the JACL going all the way back to the beginning,” Tougas said.
It took the painters about two weeks and several nights of celebrating their progress at the Rainbow Restaurant, formerly a block away, to complete the mural. Childhood’s End Gallery was later repainted dark and light blue to match.
Since 1977, the mural has only been graffitied once. And the blocks surrounding it are no longer rundown, but home to restaurants, shops and other Olympia businesses.
“(The mural) was a catalyst for other people to, in these buildings here, to start new businesses and to think internationally,” Tougas said. “In a town that was historically a working port.”
The new strokes
Davis thought the restoration would only take him six days. It took him three weeks.
“The issue with a repaint and a restoration is that it goes five times slower because I have to make sure that I’m not just honoring what Joe did, but I’m honoring what Hokusai did,” Davis said.
Davis also is a multidisciplinary artist and sign-painting shop owner — his is Wide Eyed Designs — as well as a restorationist. But before he could restore the mural, he had to remove it.
For two-and-a-half days, Davis pressure-washed, peeled and scraped away most of the paint, which was damaged by years of sun and salt exposure since the mural’s last and only restoration in 2009. He also repaired and resealed the wall behind it.
Restoration started on the third day, July 17. The paint Davis used for it is of a higher quality than Tougas’ was in 1977.
“It’s good paint,” Davis said. “And it should last for decades.”
While he referenced the 1977 mural and circa-1830s print for this year’s restoration, Davis took some creative liberties.
In the print, all of the lines are black, a common practice in Japanese print work.
In the mural, only the boats are outlined in black, pushing them into the foreground and contrasting them against the waves. To emphasize their size, the waves themselves are outlined in blue: light blue in the crests that turns dark blue in the troughs. All of the colors are more vibrant.
“We definitely took some creative liberty with making certain things stand out and certain things age properly,” Davis said.
Davis repainted most of the mural himself. But Tougas and Marco Hernandez, Davis’ friend and a tattoo artist at Lit Fuse Tattoo across the street from his studio, both guided him and made their own paint strokes on the mural.
Toward the bottom left corner are two fishermen in the first of three canoes. Tougas outlined those two fishermen himself.
“That canoe is taking the lead. The other ones are following,” Davis said. “So I wanted him to have that moment where he is repainting himself into the mural. And he is the lead canoe, leading the charge.”
Davis is finishing the restoration on Monday. When he does, he will paint his signature and the year next to Tougas’ toward the bottom right corner of the mural.
“On the surface, it’s like, yeah, I’m just repairing a mural,” Davis said. “But it is a really high honor for me to specifically be doing that mural. And doing it with all of these people involved.”
The ceremony rededicating the mural to Olympia’s Japanese American community is at 1 p.m. Sept. 8 at Childhood End’s Gallery.
Mayor Dontae Payne, Tougas, Davis and Callner are speaking at the ceremony. Callner’s speech will be on some of the ways Japanese Americans contributed to Olympia and other parts of the Pacific Northwest before their forcible internment during World War II, which government commissions would later conclude was the result of racism and a land grab.
Like other communities of color, the Japanese American community and its contributions are often erased, Callner said. But murals like Olympia’s “The Great Wave off Kanagawa” counter that erasure.
“It is a celebratory, and respectful, and beautiful iteration of the fact that we have not a monolithic culture since the earlier settlers displaced the Indigenous populations,” Callner said. “That there are, in fact, more than one kind of person here.”
This story was originally published August 5, 2024 at 5:00 AM.
