By James Massara
Work is underway for the newest mural to grace the streets of Bucyrus.
Artist Eric Grohe and his crew began painting the base of the mural at Schines Art Park as sculptures were being added to the park as well.
Grohe was the artist behind the Liberty Remembers and Great American Crossroads murals in Bucyrus.
Grohe said, though he was in retirement, he decided to come to Ohio from his Seattle home to work on the downtown Bucyrus area, a place he considers personal with his artwork.
“It’s the people,” Grohe said. “People have brought cookies and meals out to us have been fantastic. I told my workers that it’s a Norman Rockwell feel when you work here, just great American small-town feel.”
“I think people around here would give me a kidney if I needed one,” Grohe said with a smile.
Grohe said he completed a two-year project with Coca-Cola and had worked with multiple other towns, but he never feels satisfied with Bucyrus.
“I always want to give my best to a project,” Grohe said. “But sometimes you just feel like ‘stay out of my way while I work and pay me,’ but in Bucyrus I always want keep giving because the people are so generous and giving to me.”
Grohe said when he previously was in Bucyrus to touch up the crossroads mural; a young man stopped him and said the mural had been the background for his life. The young man said in front of the mural was the place his friends would hang out when he first could leave home and walk around town on his own, where he first held a girl’s hand, and many other moments.
“At the end of the day getting paid for a project is nice,” Grohe said. “But stories like that are really what get you.”
While the painting crew was working, Bucyrus employee Brian Reber was installing the first pieces of the first sculpture to be place in the park. A movie projector from the movie theater that previously resided on the lot was placed in the park and city officials plan to host movie nights on the park wall.
@JamesMassaraCCN