The first mural artist Monty Ricken painted in 1998 on the outside of the Royal Liquor store.--PHOTO COURTESY ROYAL LIQUOR STORE FACEBOOK
reporter@medicinehatnews.com
Not only was a much-loved local hangout lost when the Royal Hotel caught fire in September, but also the artwork on the exterior walls. One of the murals was painted this past July by Jarus, a world-renowned street artist who has worked all over the world.
“The reason we bring in these guys,” said Jeff Goring, organizer of Mural Fest in Medicine Hat, “and then use a local artist as well is so they can see how they do it. Jarus did the whole thing with a brush eight inches wide that he screwed onto an extension pole. He holds his iPad in one hand and paints away. He’s known all over the world for his freehand massive paintings.”
Goring explained that Medicine Hat is getting to be known for the art in its downtown area, with some paintings ending up on social media sites across the globe.
Along with the recent painting done by Jarus, there was another that has been gracing the outside of the Royal Hotel for decades. Monty Ricken, owner of Monster’s Ink, painted that first mural on the Royal Hotel back in 1999.
Ricken was working for then owner Keith Lynn. The first mural, on the side of the Royal Liquor store, was instigated by a college project. Ricken’s idea was to do a chalk drawing but Lynn wanted a mural.
“That was a lot of faith, but he was a great old guy and supported me big time with my education and artwork,” said Ricken.
Ricken wanted to do something for the city and one of the librarians suggested Medicine Hat almost changing its name as the theme.
“I did that one in ’98 and I was going to transfer to University of Victoria and asked Keith if he’d be interested in letting me do something on the hotel to help me get some money together. He was all over it. I asked him what he wanted to see on the hotel and he wanted to put a big thank-you up there to all his patrons, something fun and bar related.”
The outcome was left completely up to Ricken, who decided on a rock n’ roll biker-themed mural.
When the mural was almost finished, Ricken expanded a hand-written note from Lynn that said thanks for the good times and was signed.
“That was still there. I moved away to university and came back several years later. To come home and see that, his signature up long after he’d passed away, that meant a lot to me. That was probably the single hardest thing about seeing it disappear. It was that little piece of Keith. I really loved and respected that man and how much he did for me and that was always kind of immortalized on that wall and now it’s gone.”
The mural on the Royal Hotel was significantly bigger than the one on the liquor store. Ricken spent most of that summer working on it.
“The sheer scale of it was something I’d never worked with before,” Ricken said. “It was before Google and I was taking pictures of friends’ motorcycles for references and trying to look at album covers for images.
“It was a struggle. The other part that was neat was I made the licence plate of the bike into a sign. It was always live music and they’d have a different band come in each week and they wanted to do something with the mural. I made the licence plate with changeable letters so you could put the name of the band up on the bike. They did it for years.”
