APRIL
2004
MUNOZ NEWS

City in the
Wilderness
Munoz
Mural As Book Cover
Rie
Munoz's 1960 mural, Churches of Alaska was used as a cover
of the book, Polar State Parables. The book was written
by Kenneth W. Smith and published by iUniverse, Inc. It
has 18 short stories about Alaskan life relating to religion.
The mural is located in the Rasmuson Library in the University
of Alaska, Fairbanks.
Of the nine murals Munoz painted early in her career,
only four remain. In addition to the mural in the Rasmuson
Library, one is in Harborview School, Juneau, protected
behind plexiglass. It is located appropriately in the
art class. Another is in the Juneau International Airport,
and the last one is at the Juneau State of Alaska Library.
What happened to the other five murals you ask? One burned
in the 10-80 Club fire in Juneau, another was in the Juneau
teenage club and was raised along with the building. Two
murals were lost in Ketchikan: one in the old Pan American
Airlines office, and the other, painted for Ellis Airlines,
was in their small plane terminal. It showed the bustling
Ketchikan waterfront with boats, planes, and birds with
people coming and going. When Ellis Airlines sold their
building, the new owner wanted to remodel. One of the
first orders of business was to paint over the mural that
Munoz had taken months to create. The owner didn't realize
what he had done until one local after another advised
him of his error.
One of her first murals was done in the early 60's when
we were living in Morton, Washington. Visitors driving
through town were always asking the local grocery store
for directions to nearby Mt. Rainier so Rie was asked
if she could paint a mural showing the way. The mural
showed a large map with skiers, cars, people and of course
Mt. Rainier. For painting the mural Munoz received a month
of free groceries! We haven't been back to Morton in 43
years so we don't know the status of that one. .
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Birth
Announcement
Ok,
it's a little late but we wanted to share this with you. This 1963
birth announcement was for my wife Cathy Engstrom. Her dad, Elton
Engstrom was a fish buyer. He and his wife Sally were good friends
with Rie long before Cathy and I met 25 years later. They asked her
to draw a birth announcement for their first child. Since nobody back
then knew the sex of the baby prior to birth, the cartoon declares
that "it" must weigh more than the scale showed, a typical
fisherman's response to the weight of his catch.
Sunday
Service, Double Rummy on the Ferry and Gathering Driftwood
are the three Limited Edition Prints scheduled for release on
May 5, 2004.
2004
RELEASE SCHEDULE
Thank
you for your interest in the artwork of Rie Muñoz!
Sincerely,
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