Wayne Gilmore, who has cleaned the Murals of Chemainus for almost 30 years, is retiring. He’s got some stories to tell.
By Craig Spence
For almost thirty years Wayne Gilmore studied every square inch of just about every wall in MuralTown. So he’s got a lot of in-depth knowledge of the art, a lot of love for the town, and a few ideas about the future.
He’s the guy you will often see near the sign that says, “Mural Washing in Progress” with the logo of the Festival of Murals Society printed on the bottom. His company is named I Can See Clearly Now, and he’s hired to make sure visitors to Chemainus can see the town’s murals in their best light.
It’s a job he loves, but there comes a time when we have to pass on the torch – or the sponge and hose in Wayne’s case – and he’s spending his last months on the job training his replacement. He won’t be an easy act to follow.
Gilmore has been cleaning the historical depictions of Chemainus from the very beginning, when an idea championed by Karl Schultz was embraced by a town facing economic disaster due to the closure of the sawmill, its major employer.
“I’ve done these forever, and they’re my kind of friends,” he said of his attachment to the murals. “All the people I have met over the years have complemented the work, and the people, and the Festival, and the city, it’s a wonderful gift to be part of it for so long. I really enjoy it.”
Things he remembers and enjoyed:
“I was doing a mural and I think it was a tour that came through, and they all came up to me and wanted my picture taken with them. And I remember that – to be so welcomed by a group of people who had come to look at the murals.”
“My greatest joy was people who would come up to me and complement the whole mentality of taking care of the murals.”
Artists would sometimes include hidden figures in their murals. For instance, there was a subtly blended image of Lady Diana in the clouds of the mural that used to be on the old fire hall, where the library is now located. “She was in the clouds,” Wayne said. “When you knew that it was her lying there. It was beautifully done, but if you didn’t know it was her you never would have seen it.”
“In every mural, there’s something waiting for you that wants you to see it,” Gilmore said.
He’s confident the due care and affection given to the growing collection of murals, sculptures, and installations of the Festival of Murals Society will be an ongoing tradition.
“They’ve been here for a long time because they’ve been looked after,” he said. “The job is not only to clean the murals, it’s to prepare them for any work that’s needed to keep them up.”
It’s an ongoing project, vital to the economic well-being of Chemainus.
“I get it that the local people who see them every day, they walk by and don’t even look at them,” Gilmore said. “But people come here from all over the world. How do they know about Chemainus? They come here to see this,” he nodded toward Mural #1 Steam Donkey at Work.
If that was the beginning of his route, he’d have just 46 more murals to go in FOM’s Historical Series, not to mention: five in the Emily Carr Series; nine in the Community Series; and 10 sculptures in the FOM collection.