Muralist Gretchen Leggitt challenges viewers to redefine the spaces they pass every day

By Grace Westermann

Blonde wavy hair streams wildly out of artist Gretchen Leggitt’s winter hat as her rugged boots cover her feet. She looks ready to step inside her sketches of mountains surrounding her.

The images that line the walls of Leggitt’s petite studio makes her artwork look deceptively small.

As a muralist, her recent work is as anything but small.

It’s hard to miss the 21,800 ft mural — the size of two football fields — emblazoned on metal panels on Cornwall Avenue in Bellingham. The scene ignites the eyes to visions of the Pacific Northwest in a symphonic fusion of colorful flowing lines and mountain ranges.

It’s hard to miss the sundial mural on Unity Street of Mount Baker and the Skagit Valley lit up in vibrant colors of yellow, blue, purple and orange on a gloomy day.

Sipping tea from a handcrafted mug her friend made, she reflected on her self-discovery and the important role her creative upbringing had on her as an artist.

Leggitt’s mother, father, stepmother and brother are all artists.

“I grew up in a very creatively influential environment, ” Leggitt said. “My parents encouraged creativity, whether it was structured or spontaneous, ranging from, ‘You want to play a board game? Make one.’”

Growing up, she went to a small private school in Denver where she took an art class from Rick Sigler. There, they broke the rules of art cast down in society. They were allowed to make messes, but they were encouraged to discover the art in them.

“In middle school, you begin to define what you want to do and who you want to be, and it’s a really easy age to lose interest in childhood passions. Sigler was the one who kept that hook in my cheek,” Leggitt said.

Leggit moved to Bellingham where she continued to teach and create after getting her degree in fine arts, moving to Seattle and balancing a career as a K-8 art teacher and artist.

She said living in Seattle became tough when Amazon arrived. Rent increased and it became harder for her and her friends to afford the city when they had lived humble, low-cost lifestyles. They always valued a balance of work and play not easily achieved in a high-income job.

Bellingham became a creative and inspiring art mecca Leggitt hadn’t experienced in Seattle. She was blown away by how friendly and outgoing people were. Her artwork was well received and opened up opportunities for her to explore new mediums.

She created her first murals at Vital Climbing Gym — flowing mountain ranges on one wall and a crawling octopus with entangled tentacles on another.

“It was intimidating to have this public podium that was going to be semi permanent,” she said. “I love it though — to be able to be held accountable for something that was going to exist on that wall.”

In 2018, Leggitt knew she would need some help after finding out her sketch for a sundial mural was chosen to be painted on the side of a building. She decided to ask her dad, Jim Leggitt, to fly to Washington from Colorado.

Luckily, Jim had free time from his nine-to-five partner position at an architect planning firm and was was ecstatic when he heard his daughter’s proposition.

He said tackling the mural together 10–12 hours a day, five days in a row, was something he’ll never forget. In the process they found a rhythm, momentum and focus that carried them day by day.

“There’s a phrase, ‘How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time,’” Jim said. “We eventually created this mammoth of a task of creating a mural. It takes a lot of courage, you dive in and make it happen. If you fail you fail, if you succeed you succeed.”

To Jim, there’s a lot of creative people out there, and street art is a great way of expressing their talent. It activates a dead space and creates a sense of pride for the community.

Over the years, mural art has bursted through the seams of rising social media, showing its growth and popularity around the country and back in Gretchen’s home state.

She said downtown Denver has embraced street art though a revitalization project where downtown is now known as the River North Art District, or Rino.

“There used to be a pretty run down slummy, industrial area,” Leggitt said. “An art epicenter got created with art studios and along with that came street art.”

Street art in the 1960’s gained popularity in the ’70s and ’80s. This type of art is a descendant of murals with a long history of bringing cultures and communities to life.

The first known murals dates back 35,000 years to images of hunters and animals carved into walls of Indonesian caves. Throughout time, they have found their way onto walls from the Roman Empire to Chinese depictions of paradise to current commissioned building designs.

Unlike entering a gallery or art museum where the viewer is anticipating judgements and reactions to artwork, street murals redefine our notion of where art lives.

“We expect the streets to be gray with blank walls, and it’s a beautiful surprise to mentally unwrap this unique work of art when you turn the corner,” Leggitt said. “Having a painting on the side of the building pushes the boundaries for how we interact with architecture.”

However, murals can be fraught with challenges.

Liggett admitted to loving the problem solving elements of each uniquely different mural. She said designing the work is one small facet, and it’s mostly about questioning how to get a drawing enlarged to a massive scale while maintaining the quality of the image.

She said the last thing she thought she would come across in creating murals is the perception from others she would need help because she’s a woman.

“I have had clients question my ability to operate heavy machinery like boom lifts or question if I’m able to get the job done alone, and it feels really empowering and really good to be able to prove them wrong,” Liggett said.

Apart from murals, Leggitt stays busy with various art projects. Each one tells a visual narrative of her outdoor adventures.

Her face was animated as she talked about growing up in Colorado with a passion for the environment.

“I started skiing when I was two years old,” Leggitt said. “My dad had us rock climbing outdoors, white water kayaking in the third grade and mountain biking — so I was definitely raised on the lands with an appreciation for conservation and the wild.”

Her next mural will be 160 ft by 15 ft on a shoring wall in Seattle off Lake City Way on what was once a concrete and wood retainer.

“Street art is blowing up. I’m excited to see more businesses investing in beautifying their buildings and their streets in unique ways,” Gretchen said. “It redefines the space.”

In her studio, a writer’s desk sat against a window where a face lay half sketched on the back of an old map. Other figurative portraits adorned the space, a surprising twist from her signature landscapes of mountain ranges and outdoor adventures.

She said her own style is something she’s been chipping away at in her lifetime. To recreate a person on paper captivated her. Then, she broke away from it and entered geometric line work and realism within an abstract space, incorporating a more nature-based theme.

When she’s creating murals, moments don’t only belong to her. They’re shared.

“A mural is so rewarding,” Leggitt said. “To get to put myself out there and engage with people on the streets and see their reactions is so encouraging. I feel like I’ve reached a point in my creative output in which I have thankfully defined my authentic style.”