Recent passersby on Heber City’s Main Street may have noticed Midway muralist Pamela Flynn perched on a scaffold, painting the side of the Casago building. She’s only there between 6 p.m. and 2 a.m. The July heat has been a bit much to handle during the day.
“It’s, like, 105 on that concrete,” Flynn said. “The whole building is black except for the part that I am working on. The other day, I was putting on the primer, and sweat was just pouring off me.”
The odd painting schedule works perfectly fine for Flynn. She’s a night owl who’s typically up that late creating anyway. She paints animals, landscapes and occasionally her husband dressed as a mountain man, coonskin cap and all.
Flynn’s latest project is Heber City’s newest public art installation. Funded by a $2,850 grant from the city’s Trails, Arts & Parks Tax, the mural’s goal is to “enhance downtown’s visual appeal, strengthen community identity and reinforce Main Street as a creative destination that supports local businesses and community pride,” said Rachel Kahler, executive director of the Community Alliance for Main Street, the nonprofit managing the project.
The mural, 13 feet tall and 31 feet wide, reads “Hello Heber” over a mountain landscape in orange, black and blue tones. Casago owner Jeff Harris hopes the mural serves a similar purpose to the iconic Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas sign.
“It’s the first mural you might see when you come into town, almost like that Las Vegas one,” he said. “The whole idea was to get people to stop and take pictures, and then develop more visibility for Heber as a tourist destination.”
Harris manages about 60 vacation rentals in the Heber Valley, which will expand to over 300 when Avari Vacation Rentals acquires the company next month. Casago has operated out of the building on Main Street for the past eight months.
Harris has visited the Heber Valley since he was a kid. He said it’s always been a tourist destination, but with recent developments like Deer Valley East Village, visitation is booming more than ever.
“In five years, everybody’s going to have heard of Heber. I think the train’s left the station. There’s no turning that back,” he said.
In Harris’ eyes, the “Hello Heber” mural is a way to greet visitors and new residents with open arms.
“When I first moved here in 2020 … I still had a California (license plate). A guy literally accosted me in the (gas station) parking lot. He screamed and yelled at me about moving up here from California, and I wasn’t welcome here, and all this other stuff,” he said. “We want people to feel welcome here.”
Flynn was the ideal candidate to paint Harris’ vision. Her experience stretches back to childhood.
How does a child get permission to paint murals, you might ask?
“Your mom is awesome, that’s how,” Flynn said. “You’re 9, and you go, ‘Mom, can I paint on the walls of my bedroom?’ And your mom goes, ‘All right. It’s just paint.’”
So Flynn painted mermaid habitats, jungles dotted with the glow-in-the-dark eyes of predators and the covers of all her favorite Boston and Van Halen albums on her bedroom walls.
Her current bedroom is painted like a castle with bats fluttering around on the starry ceiling.
Flynn refined her skills while apprenticing under Latter-day Saint artist Linda Curley Christensen for the past decade. Christensen leads a mural-painting team for the church out of a studio in Wallsburg.
“All of these canvases are put up in a barn that’s been converted to a massive studio, and they are on these movable easels. Everything gets gridded. Everything gets put up. It all has to be OK’d first before you can even put it on there,” Flynn said. “Each one of those murals is a two-year project. They’re huge.”
Murals Flynn has worked on have been installed at temples in South Jordan, St. George, Mesa, Arizona and Tegucigalpa, Honduras.
But her favorite murals are the ones she’s painted at home, in the Midway Town Hall, Heber City Public Safety Building and Rocky Mountain Middle School.
“I lost two daughter-in-laws in the past five years. … It really put things in perspective, and it really made me say, ‘What do I want to leave behind when I’m gone?’” Flynn said. “(My husband) is always saying, ‘Honey, you left your mark on this valley.’”