Artists from Pueblo and beyond continue quest to reclaim Guinness record with levee mural

The Pueblo Mural Levee Project once held the Guinness World Record for the largest outdoor mural in the world, helping it become a landmark in Pueblo that fused artistry and history together.

Pueblo lost that record in 2018 when a 254,983-square-foot mural in South Korea was brought to life. Pueblo artists and others from afar, however, are collaborating and using their creative touch to reclaim it for the Steel City.

“The idea that this may be a Guinness World Record, it’s kind of exciting to be part of that,” said Tim Nijenhuis, an experienced mural artist.

Nijenhuis, a Netherlands native and resident of Hamilton, a city in Ontario, Canada, is the latest muralist to shape their artistic vision onto the Pueblo Levee Mural Levee Project. He spent this past week painting a design on the levee over three days, having traveled more than a thousand miles by car to do so. His work helped push the mural's total square footage to around 98,000.

Nijenhuis first made stops in Fraser, Colorado and Saskatchewan, Canada where he painted other murals. He’ll head to Michigan next after Pueblo before making his way back home.

An international artist who makes their living creating public art, Nijenhuis couldn’t pass up the opportunity to be part of the Pueblo Mural Levee Project. His submission for a mural contest sponsored by the city wasn’t selected. But when told by Cynthia Ramu, muralist and coordinator for the project, that he was welcome anytime, Nijenhuis made time in his schedule to visit Pueblo.

He also cited a desire to spread his wings and expand his footprint.

“It’s kind of a mosaic, right? Everybody has their own style,” Nijenhuis said of the murals on the levee. “Together, it’s one big piece of artwork.”

Ramu spoke of how significant it is that an artist would come down from Canada just to be part of the project. She has fielded calls from artists in other parts of Colorado such as Denver and Colorado Springs and in other parts of the U.S., too, some of whom just want to come down and collaborate with local artists working on the levee.

One artist from North Carolina flies back to Pueblo every three months to continue working on their own mural design. After a visit to Amsterdam, they learned other artistic styles and came back to Pueblo to share them.

Another artist from Albuquerque came to Pueblo and camped while she put up her own design on the levee, Ramu said.

Some will artists help one another design and paint the mural, blending their experiences and knowledge to help the artwork stand out.

“It’s like a network,” Ramu said. “It’s a lot of people sharing experiences and expertise and growing together, whether they live here or not. It creates resources for the (artists) who live here.”

Ramu earlier this week received at least six submissions from artists she hasn’t met before who want to paint something on the levee. The interest to join Nijenhuis and other local artists such as Shannon Palmer, Tia Monson, Desiree Talmich and countless others who’ve painted murals on the wall is “picking up,” Ramu said.

Some of those artists, including Palmer and Monson, have tapped into Pueblo’s history with their designs. Palmer and Talmich will recreate a painting of Teresita Sandoval, co-founder of the El Pueblo Trading Post, later this year. Monson completed her depiction of Pueblo’s Great Flood of 2021 earlier this year.

Another artist wants to paint their interpretation of the Pueblo Dodgers, a former minor-league affiliate of Major League Baseball’s Brooklyn Dodgers, now Los Angeles, that played in Pueblo County Ball Park, now Runyon Field, between 1947 and 1957. Some others want to paint a mural related to the Colorado State Fair.

“There’s lots of possibilities,” Ramu said. “To me it’s all about that word — possibility. What can we come up with next?”

What’s certain for Ramu and her army of artists is that they have plenty of room left on the levee to put up other designs to continue the mission that Dave Roberts, founder of the project, started in 1979. Ramu estimates that it could take three years to paint the hundreds of remaining blank panels on the levee and ultimately reclaim the word record.

But Pueblo artists have two other records they're also targeting: breaking Pueblo's own record of 200,000 square feet of mural that stood between 1995 and 2018, and surpassing the 170,000 square-foot mural in Wichita, Kansas that last year set a record as the largest in the U.S.

Ramu said Pueblo could break the world record and continue to build on it because unlike the mural in South Korea, artists here have more room to work with.

At some point, artists should reach the Main Street Bridge along the levee in their pursuit to extend the mural, which Nijenhuis feels helps put Pueblo “on the map” and is "something to be proud of.”

“What public art does is it brings people together from all kinds of different backgrounds,” Nijenhuis said. “My artistic vision is to do something positive and contribute in a positive way and bring people together.

“When you do public art like murals, it doesn’t matter who you are or where you’re from, most people have the same reaction to the artwork and that’s a positive one. It’s a good way to contribute to society.”

Chieftain reporter Josue Perez can be reached at JHPerez@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter @josuepwrites. Support local news, subscribe to The Pueblo Chieftain at subscribe.chieftain.com.

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This article originally appeared on The Pueblo Chieftain: Artists unite to reclaim former Pueblo world record for outdoor mural