PORT ANGELES — A mural depicting a fundamental story of the Klallam people has been started on a wall at The Gateway transit center.

Artist Toma Villa, a registered member of the Yakima Nation living in Suquamish, has outlined the mural that tells the story of the origin of the name for the Klallam, the Strong People, on a 13½-foot-tall, 30-foot-wide wall at the transit center.

Fill in colors

During the next two weeks, students from throughout the Port Angeles School District will fill in the colors on the mural, which will serve as a backdrop to the weekly farmers market and other events held in the pavilion.

The story of the Strong People tells of a contest of strength at a Klallam gathering.

The Elwha Klallam figured out how to use water to float a huge log into their shoulders, allowing them to carry a heavy load.

Forever after, the Klallam were known as the Strong People.

“What I like about this idea is that it’s more than lifting a log; it’s a community getting together to solve a problem,” Villa said.

“That’s what I thought of when I started the drawings: everyone together, unified, to fix whatever problem there might be.”

Suzie Bennett, manager of the Elwha Kallam Heritage Center at 401 E. First St. in Port Angeles, spearheaded the project, which, she said, is funded 50-50 by the First Federal Foundation and the Lower Elwha Klallam tribe.

Bennett and Villa met about a year and a half ago at a conference in Idaho.

“He showed me some of his murals, and I said I want that here,” Bennett said.

Villa, 38, uses Native American themes in the murals he paints. His art is “all up and down the Columbia River,” he said, and he also carves and sculpts.

He works with the Confluence in the Classroom project based in Vancouver, Wash., which involves young people in creating murals — “a crash-course painting workshop,” he said.

“I get to go out and paint murals with kids,” Villa said, adding that he has done 17 murals in four years.

His aims weren’t always so lofty.

Started with graffiti

Villa’s first experience with using paint was as a tagger in southeast Portland, Ore.

“Everyone had their own tag they went by. I was fascinated by the names on the walls and would think of images . . . develop personas of who the people were,” he said.

While in middle school, he took spray paint in hand and began making his own graffiti on walls and trains.

He was arrested for the first time when he was 16.

“It sucks going to jail,” Villa said.

So he went to college at Mt. Hood Community College in Gresham, Ore., and Portland State University and majored in art, learning iron casting and painting, and eventually became involved in the confluence project.

Stronger tribal presence

When Bennett attended the Idaho conference, she was thinking about how to create a stronger tribal presence in Port Angeles.

On her mind were comments she had heard from some as they entered the heritage center and saw the display of artifacts — objects that illustrate that the tribe, whose reservation is now west of Port Angeles, once lived all along the waterfront.

“They said, ‘Oh yeah, there used to be a tribe here,’ ” Bennett said.

“Used to be,” she emphasized indignantly. “They didn’t know there is a living tribe here.”

Impressed with Villa’s work, she contacted Mayor Patrick Downie, city Community Development Director Nathan West and others.

“I didn’t know who to go to, so I just started calling people,” she said, adding that Downie “pulled everyone together.”

A committee was developed, and after several renditions of a potential mural were considered, the final choice was approved by that panel as well as the tribal community, she said.

More vitality

“I think the mural project will bring more vitality to the downtown,” Downie said.

“We are going to celebrate the story of the Strong People.”

In February, the city erected street signs in both English and Klallam at the intersections of Oak and Front streets and Oak Street and Railroad Avenue.

Those signs “are part of the same thing,” Downie said.

“It’s bringing our communities and cultures together.”

The mural will largely adhere to the story, Villa said. One liberty has been taken: The warriors will be carrying a carved figure from the water.

“I wanted to paint something more than just a log,” Villa said.

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Executive Editor Leah Leach can be reached at 360-417-3530 or at lleach@peninsuladailynews.com.