From 2016 to 2024, with the help of neighbors, schools, businesses and artists, we painted walls, filled rooms with local makers, and celebrated public art in Pullman.
Every mural was paid for by small donations, PTAs, local businesses and partners, and painted by students, volunteers and working artists. Thank you.
It started in 2016 with two walls at Jefferson Elementary. Joe Hedges and Jiemei Lin, artists who teach at Washington State University, designed murals the elementary students voted on, and WSU painting students helped paint the designs. More walls followed.
In 2020, a proposed Black Lives Matter mural fell apart after a dispute between the Pullman Arts Commission and City Council. We believed Pullman still needed a public statement that connected local concerns with the national Black Lives Matter movement. So we found another wall, raised the money from the community, and painted End Racism Now on Main Street in the summer of 2021. Our neighbors showed up in a big way, and that project turned a group of like-minded acquaintances and friends into a foundation.
Over the next few years we painted murals around town, ran artist markets, put on festivals and an artwalk, and partnered with the Downtown Pullman Association on our biggest wall yet. Along the way the DPA began organizing mural projects of its own, and we were glad to step back and let them carry the work forward.
We set out to help make Pullman an arts destination. Many people made that happen: the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art brought in blockbuster shows, Terracotta opened a ceramics studio downtown, and Greystone Grand Gallery and Gifts opened its doors. We were glad to be part of a big wave of arts activity, and it keeps reverberating today.
Wall by wall. Some of this happened before we were officially a foundation, but these early projects showed us how much the work mattered and moved us toward making it official.
2016Our first public art in Pullman. The students chose the designs by vote: a jaguar facing the street and Cybercheckers facing the playground.
2019A kestrel on one side. On the other, a design built around the molecule of the temperature-sensitive paint used to make it, synthesized in a WSU chemistry lab.
2021Made in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement after the city's own mural effort stalled. Rolling Palouse hills, African poppies and a rainbow palette, with the message "You are welcome here." More than $17,000 came from neighbors and local businesses, and property owner Moon Lee offered the wall.
2022Fish and microorganisms wrap the building, tying Indigenous knowledge to science and pointing to how much the Palouse depends on water.
2022–23A three-story Dutch Flowers Still Life after Ambrosius Bosschaert, a Modernist Grid, and Raincoat.
2023Our largest project: a 100-foot mural, funded with more than $30,000.
Jiemei and Meg ran many artist markets at Lumberyard, a restaurant in the building that is now Ace Hardware.
An outdoor spring art festival with Lumberyard, Art Niche and Hotel McCoy.
We helped organize this riverside festival, starting with a call to artists and makers.
Art across downtown Pullman.
There's still work to be done. There always is. But now so many more people are doing it, which was always the goal.
Today, the Downtown Pullman Association continues to organize murals and maintains a great map of downtown murals.
Former PAF board members continue to stay engaged with the arts and the Pullman community. Sarah Barnett has gone on to make murals on her own and with the DPA, including the downtown train mural restoration. Jiemei Lin has designed murals for the WSU Libraries. June Sanders continues to advocate for rural and queer artists. Meg Gollnick continues to direct the Pullman Schools Pantry Program, and Joe Hedges is the interim director of the WSU Pollart Center for Arts & Humanities.
The people who steered the foundation. Many students, volunteers, donors, artists and business owners did the rest. The board's terms have ended; PAF would need a new board to start again.
Founder and executive director. Painter and intermedia artist.
Cofounder and creative director. Designed many of our murals and ran the artist markets.
Creative director. Artist, educator and curator.
Development director. Cofounder of the Pullman Schools Pantry Program.
Project coordinator. Figurative painter who painted on many of our walls.
Pullman Arts Foundation is on hiatus. We felt we had done what we set out to do, or at least made real strides toward it, and our work kept growing. We still keep the foundation in good standing in case someone else is called to pick it up.
One idea we are still exploring: a small annual grant for Pullman artists, especially from underserved communities. If you'd like to lead that, help fund it, or bring PAF back in some other form, please reach out.