Trio of artists gathers 39 years later to restore West Side mural in St. Paul

It was a bright, hot afternoon in St. Paul, where a trio of artists — hair now thinner and ranging from salt-and-pepper to bright white — were traveling back in time.

There, against a south-facing wall of Captain Ken's Foods on St. Paul's West Side, the men used brushes and monochromatic paint to refresh a mural they created 39 years ago: "Hunger Has No Color." That John Acosta, Armando Gutiérrez G and Richard Schletty were able to do this work was not only appropriate, they said, but a gift.

To the community. And for them.

"We were here 40 years ago, and we were blessed to be able to come back here and climb our scaffolds, get on our stepladders," Schletty said. "I told my son, 'You can wheel me out here when I'm 90 with a big, long paintbrush. Or maybe an AI-guided robot, and then we'll do the next restoration.' "

Said Acosta: "This is a blessing to be back here after 39 years. It really is."

For months, the artists have been restoring the grayscale mural — 60 feet wide by 12 feet high. They hope to wrap the restoration in the next week.

Years of damage from the sun, rain and ice first required repairs to the wall, their canvas. It is the second restoration of the mural, previously refreshed in 2010.

With about $20,000 in combined funding from St. Paul's Neighborhood STAR grant program and Captain Ken's Foods, including new rain gutters and flashing, they hope the work can last decades more.

"To get the original creating artists back together to do this complete restoration 39 years after they created it. I mean, there's something magical about that," said Mike Traxler, co-owner of Captain Ken's with his brother John.

In the old tradition of Renaissance artists who placed community members and patrons into their paintings, the "Hunger" artists used neighbors, friends and even passersby as models. Schletty and Gutiérrez are professionally trained. Acosta said he's mostly self-taught.

A neighborhood celebration marking the restoration is in the works, the artists said, perhaps during the neighborhood fiesta on Sept. 16 celebrating Mexican independence.

"It's not only like a reunion, but it's really meaningful to repaint it, and then to have a celebration around it and we're all here to see it? It's an honor," Gutiérrez said. "The building owners could have just painted over it."

Not on your life, said Mike Traxler.

"It's part of Captain Ken's. It's been here — and Captain Ken's has been here — for a lot of decades," he said. "It's a unique point in St. Paul. A destination."

Schletty first approached the Traxlers two years ago to suggest refreshing their nearly 40-year-old mural. It didn't take long for the brothers to go all in.

"It's powerful," John Traxler said of the sprawling painting.

"People drive by and see the painting, and it gives them a good feeling," Mike Traxler said. "And it gives us at Captain Ken's a good feeling as well, knowing the legacy of [founder] Ken Freiberg continues through the painters and through their artwork."