Hometown pride shows in mural

MINSTER - Katelyn Puthoff loves her hometown.

She is a Minster High School graduate who was called on to use her talents to present a view of historic Minster for village residents and visitors to enjoy.

"It's very, very cool getting to embody what I love about my small town," she said.

Puthoff is an art student at Wright State University in Dayton who plans to graduate in the spring. She was asked by Minster Historical Society Museum curator Mary Oldiges to paint a mural for the village to be displayed in a little park downtown.

"I agreed to it," she said. "It was a great opportunity."

She and Oldiges met to talk about the project and decided on a three-panel mural depicting scenes from more than a century ago.

"We talked about what I wanted to capture on all of the panels and the three main ideas of what we both think of from living in Minster all of our lives," Puthoff said.

The mural is made up of three 5-feet-by-9-feet panels mounted next to a wall outside the museum, 112 W. Fourth St. Combined, the panels span 42 feet.

The panels show an agricultural scene, a downtown scene and people near the village's first church. The images were not simply dreamed up by the artist.

Puthoff explained, "They have a great photo library here on line, so Mary and I went through a bunch of pictures with her knowing so much more historically and thinking more of the composition aspects. They are all from images that we have."

She noted that there is no actual photo of the village's first church, but there are sketches of the design and the building dimensions are known. She called the scene depicted on the panel as being "mostly made up but using actual facts."

The task of capturing the historical scenes was done in another historic village setting.

"I painted in the cafeteria of the old elementary school, which is now the Halls of Hanover. It was really weird because I remember being in that cafeteria as a kid, and now I'm painting this mural in there. It feels so much smaller in there now than when I was a kid. Back then it was huge, and it really wasn't all that big of a cafeteria," Puthoff remembered.

The latex mural is painted on lightweight aluminum composite dibond panels that weigh only 50-60 pounds apiece. The process of painting the mural was squeezed into Puthoff's schedule of classes and work.

"The painting part, I was rushing against time. I really did the majority of the painting in about a month, while working about 30 hours a month in Dayton. I would work Wednesday night, then Thursday, Friday and Saturday and part of Sunday at that job. Then Sunday night I would come here and paint all Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday morning. And I did that for about five weeks," she said.

The panels were taken from the old school by workers from the village. The workers took the panels to the new park and mounted them in place earlier this fall.

Puthoff has plans for life after graduation. She has been commissioned to paint a mural by the Dayton branch of the American Red Cross. She will oversee a group of artists who will pull the effort together. The mural will eventually be seen on First Street in Dayton.

After that, she is planning a November wedding with her fiance. She also plans for furthering her education, but those details are on hold for now.

"I do plan on getting my master's. I haven't quite decided where," she said. "I think I'm going to focus on getting married in November. We'll get that out of the way, then we'll figure out our next move."

Puthoff said having a mural of her work on display in her hometown is very gratifying.

"At first it was very intimidating because you work so hard on it, and it becomes so personal. I'm my own worst critic, but I think everyone is happy with it. I'm happy they're happy. That's really all I could ask for," she said, smiling.