There's a buzz in the Fort Collins air over the intersection of sign painting, outside wall murals and public sentiment.

At the rejuvenated Lost Fort Collins blog, Terence Hoaglund christened the blog's re-design by publishing an article about the outside wall murals in Old Town. I've hyperlinked to the article, above, and it's worth reading. Terence expresses his enthusiasm for Old Town's murals, which reflects my own and that of many others in Fort Collins. We like how the murals look on our buildings. "They add depth and character to otherwise blank facades", Terence says – And while public murals can do more than that (think of the political perspectives WPA artists sometimes brought to their public art), in Fort Collins, depth and character is enough.

In addition to wall murals, Old Town is famous for its ghost signs – which are commercial advertisements from 50 years ago and before that, painted on the sides of buildings. All of Old Town's ghosts are in plain sight, but you have to know where to look. The most famous ghost is the Coke sign on the wall at CooperSmith's (the home of Sigda's Green Chili beer, which I like and recommend) on Mountain Avenue. Local sign painter and graphic artist Don Brown painted the sign in 1958 for Angell's Delicatessen, which Coke reimbursed for its promotion of the new, 12 oz, king-sized bottles of Coke (even then, soft drink manufactures wanted to supersize us).

Commerce created the Coke sign, but it now serves as a visual anchor defining how we see and experience Old Town (those of you who live in more metropolitan areas might think it's quaint that an advertisement plays such a prominent role in the Fort Collins landscape, but you have to realize how compact the scale of this city is, as compared with, say, Denver). The sign functions as a worthwhile landmark... How it and other Old Town landmarks will evolve into the future is something else entirely.

But not so fast. The city's Historic Preservation Office has been trying to contend with Don Brown and his legacy for a while. And finally, a series of recent Coloradoan articles announced the Office has raised over $44,000 to preserve the Coke sign. I've cited one of the Coloradoan articles above and reproduced it below, with the highlighting mine. The Coke sign will move forward with Fort Collins and not, for the foreseeable future, fade away.

What's undetermined, at this point, is the stage-of-life that the Coke sign will assume in its preserved, forward-looking condition. Will preservation turn-back the clock to the sign's spanking-new appearance in 1958? That would be pretty ugly, but the possibility of doing so focuses our attention on the wide range of successive stages in the sign's history that preservation could reproduce.

Once we get the Coke sign squared away, what's next? Are we going to preserve all the other ghost signs in Fort Collins? All the outside wall murals? All the other public art that the city's funded in its program to deter graffiti?

We'd agree not all the outside art – and related visual phenomena – in Fort Collins is worth saving forever. But, do we know where to draw a circle around the art that means the most to those who live here?

The art I want to see included in that circle – every time someone enumerates the worthwhile visual experiences in Fort Collins – is the outside and inside murals by Susan K. Dailey at Avogadro's Number on Mason Street in Old Town.

Susan Dailey's murals (also see her website hyperlinked above) are one of the reasons why eating at Avo's is a great experience and what makes Avo's a Fort Collins landmark. It's a place remembered by people who visit here (and a place where creatives always end up), which is what Avo's seer and owner, Rob Osborne, told me; and he should know – he's officiated over Avo's since the early 1980s. (Kristian – who, herself, is a force-of-nature and the author of the Feasting Fort Collins blog – really needs to add Avo's to her must-visit list, and when she goes there, I recommend the falafel sub, although she'd be remiss not to try the tempeh.)

Having said all that, Susan Dailey's Avo’s murals illustrate stories we know immediately, even when they're new to us. Stories that include:

•The link between Easter Island's megaliths and Star Trek's exploration of space.

•Our familiarity with a jungly environment, where bobcats and elves emerge from behind the leaves.

•Our familiarity with a Poudre River pastoral, where deer graze beneath the cottonwoods – and keep us at several snouts distance from the picture plane that they gracefully inhabit.

Then, on the outside wall of the north side of the building, there's a wizard sitting in a tower. He's studying a book of ciphers (we assume it's Avogadro's Number), while eating a sub. Children – or the representatives of some diminutive species – play in the bushes. That is, they play in the landscaping. Part of what makes the mural enjoyable is the way it accommodates, wraps itself around, and comments upon the building's door, windows and shrubbery. You don't see that kind of site specificity in other Old Town murals or in the ghost signs.

Susan Dailey began painting the mural in 1982. For years, Avo's patrons enjoyed it when eating on the terrace. Sometime in 2003 or 2004, Rob Osborne closed the terrace and moved Avo's outdoor dinning to the back yard.

How many of Avo's patrons experienced the mural in its 20+ years of active life? Find out for yourself:

Total number of patrons =
Patrons on the terrace per day × Days amenable to outdoor dinning per year × 20 years

What estimate do you get? Somewhere between several hundred thousand and a million patrons? That's a lot – and all of them passed through the terrace in warm proximity to Susan Dailey's mural.

What's the status of the mural now? It's still there – overlooking a gravel parking lot. The colors seem less vibrant to me, and I think they're fading. When I asked Rob Osborne about that, he said he thought the mural looked OK. Which is true; the mural is very far from end-of-life. But it's also in the precarious position of no longer being connected directly to the daily activity at Avo's. Susan Dailey's mural is in the same orphaned position that Don Brown's Coke sign was in, when Angell's Delicatessen closed up in the 1960s.

I asked Rob Osborne what would happen to the mural. He said he hadn't thought about it, but probably it would fade away.

Fair enough. I wonder if all the people who have enjoyed Susan Dailey's mural over the years would agree that that's the mural's appropriate fate.

Fort Collins Preservation Officials Consider Signs in Old Town Square
Preservation Officials Working on Specifics
by Kevin Duggan • kevinduggan@coloradoan.com • June 8, 2010

An iconic Old Town "ghost" sign may be restored in the coming months, although just how lively it will be remains to be seen.

Fort Collins historic preservation officials are exploring their options for preserving the familiar Coca Cola and Angell's Delicatessen signs on a brick wall near an entryway to Old Town Square off Mountain Avenue.

The faded, peeling signs were painted on the side of the building that now houses CooperSmith's Pub & Brewing Co. in 1958 by noted local artisan Don Brown.

In 2009, the city's Historic Preservation Office received a $22,200 grant from the Colorado State Historical Fund to preserve the signs.

During the past year, matching funds for the grant have been secured for the project, including $13,411 from the Downtown Development Authority, $6,388 from the city, $2,195 from Progressive Old Town Square LLC, which owns the building, and $500 from the Fort Collins Historical Society.

Contractors that would stabilize the wall and work on the images have been selected. Now comes the hardest part, said Carol Tunner, a historic preservation consultant who is managing the project – deciding what the spruced-up signs should look like.

"Everybody has an opinion," she said. "I'm going to do what I can to make everybody happy."

The issue is choosing the point in time at which the signs should be restored, said Tunner, who formerly worked as a planner with city's Historic Preservation Office.

Options include repainting the signs to their original colors, keeping them as they now appear and recreating what they looked like some years ago based on photographs, she said. Some people support just letting the signs continue to deteriorate until they naturally fade away.

"I personally don't like that idea," she said. "I think they should be saved for future generations to see."

Considerable public input has already been received about the project, said Karen McWilliams, a planner with the Historic Preservation Office.

More input will be taken before choosing which treatment to apply to the sign, she said. Stakeholders include the state historic fund, the city's Landmark Preservation Commission and the City Council.

"We just want to make sure everybody is on the same page," she said.

During a recent City Council meeting, some members said the Coca Cola sign should continue to look old to fit in with the ambience of Old Town. Mayor pro tem Kelly Ohlson said "a giant, new Coke sign" would not "look right at all."

Ohlson said "lightning would have to strike" before he would support restoring the sign to its former appearance.

"I think we ought to protect it as is," he said. "I think going back even five years and trying to make it look kind of old and funky... (is) even more faux than redoing it."

Mayor Doug Hutchinson, who ate at Angell's Delicatessen while growing up in Fort Collins, said he was "bowled over" by the thought of a sign being painted to look like new.

Restoration efforts will include replacing mortar between bricks in the wall, removing flaked paint and applying a special varnish to the paintings to stop further deterioration, Tunner said.

The J.L. Hohnstein Block, which has the signs, dates to 1904.

Hand-painted advertising signs on the sides of commercial buildings were common in the era before mass-produced signs and billboards, city officials say.

Coca-Cola paid Brown $400 to paint the sign; the restoration project is budgeted for $44,694.

Tunner said the process of preserving the sign will be complex. Special scaffolding will be brought in during the work, which is likely to happen this fall or next spring.