Three murals that greet visitors to the downtown Everett Public Library not only represent history, they are pieces of the past. The one really showing its age is getting a makeover.
In the library’s front entrance, raise your eyes above the main level. There’s no missing the murals painted in 1934, the year the Art Deco library was completed.
The murals on the lobby’s north, south and west walls are “a natural time line,” said Peter Malarkey, a Seattle-based oil painting conservator. “They are pieces of history, and an integral part of the building.”
Together, they tell a story.
The north wall shows the “Modern City of Everett” in 1934 when the library was new. On the south wall is the “New City of Everett,” with images from its founding in 1893. A close look reveals an East Coast investor skipping town with a bag of money.
And on the west wall is a sweeping map of Puget Sound and the Washington coastline, with early settlements, Native Americans, and Spanish and English explorers of the 18th and 19th centuries. One central figure is Captain George Vancouver, the English explorer who landed in the area in 1792.
It’s that big mural now being restored.
All three were painted, for $550, by John Theodore “Ted” Jacobsen in August and September of 1934, just before the library opened. Jacobsen, once an architecture student of Everett library designer Carl Gould, had done murals at the University of Washington’s Suzzallo Library, also a Gould design. He had studied fresco painting in Paris.
There are reasons the west-wall mural looks worse than the other two.
Everett Public Library Director Eileen Simmons said Monday the other two murals were painted on canvas. But Jacobsen painted the big one directly on plaster, possibly because of time constraints. Making matters worse, it was exposed to water damage from a 1990 storm during remodeling.
Coinciding with the library’s 1991 expansion, Malarkey cleaned and preserved the two canvas murals.
Saving the big mural is painstaking work. Malarkey, who also worked on the Everett Station murals, estimates it would cost about $80,000 to complete restoration of the west mural. He is working on a first phase under contract with the city. Everett’s Cultural Arts Department is providing $21,000, Simmons said.
On Tuesday, Malarkey explained the initial process, which involves using special glue to stabilize paint that has cracked — “delaminated” — off the plaster. He covers those areas with mulberry tissue paper, then applies adhesive through the paper, which guards the paint. He then uses a solution of water and diammonium citrate. “It doesn’t take the paint off as long as I’m cautious,” he said.
Future work would entail repainting areas where the paint is gone, and patching holes left by a long-ago remodeling project. A protective coating would complete the work. He similarly sealed the other murals 25 years ago.
Simmons isn’t shy about saying that about $60,000 is needed for all the work. The library plans to use money from its budget and endowments to start the second phase. And she hopes private donors will step up.
From its start, the library has had private partnerships. It was founded in the late 1800s by the Everett Woman’s Book Club, and built with a $75,000 bequest from industrialist Leonard Howarth. Its endowments are held today by the Community Foundation of Snohomish County.
Simmons spoke about the project at a recent reception at the library. Guests got a look at the mural, which is accessible from the library’s second-floor administration area.
One could ask why it matters — why spend $80,000 to fix something that has seen better days?
“It’s Everett in the context of Puget Sound,” said Malarkey, who praised the city’s record of honoring its past.
“This is an architecturally significant building. We have a great art collection. The murals are part of the original building,” Simmons said. “True, it’s expensive to restore this. But if we don’t, it will be gone.”
Julie Muhlstein: 425-339-3460; jmuhlstein@heraldnet.com.
How to help
Anyone interested in contributing to the Everett Public Library’s mural restoration project may email Eileen Simmons, library director, at: esimmons@everettwa.gov
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