Painting Hominy

By Elaine Perkins • Photos by the author

One day a man named Cha´ (CHAY) Tullis read an advertisement in his hometown newspaper. The ad said that a muralist was needed to paint a small mural on the front of a downtown store. A muralist is an artist who paints pictures on walls.

Cha´, an artist who is part Blackfoot Indian, lives in Hominy, Oklahoma. Hominy is an old town, and it was beginning to look worn out. Cha´ wanted to help his town look fresh again.

Cha´ has to keep adding paint to this mural. Birds peck at it to get to the sandstone wall under the paint. The sand helps the birds to digest food.

He went to talk to the city leaders about the ad he had read. They said that the mural would be a black-and-white picture of three places that were important to the town’s history.

Cha´ wanted to do something bigger and brighter than what they had in mind. He talked about his ideas with the leaders. They came to an agreement.

Cha´ had fun painting this mural. He says, “I got to splash and throw paint around where the water is.”

The leaders agreed to let Cha´ use bright, bold colors to paint a big mural on another building. In return, Cha´ agreed to paint the black-and-white mural that they wanted.

“Probably the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do was put the first brushstroke on that wall,” said Cha´ about his first big mural. He was afraid that people wouldn’t like his art.

The artist hopes that this mural will remind people to love and respect all living things.

But they did. After Cha´ completed that mural, business owners all over town asked him to do murals on their buildings, too. So far, Cha´ has painted forty murals of Native American art in Hominy. He plans to do fifty-six murals, then start over again.

Bright colors are found in most of Cha´’s work. He used fourteen colors in this mural, which is titled “Messenger.”

“I want constant change,” said Cha´, who hopes people will look forward to visiting his hometown again to see what’s new. The work that Cha´ has done is the reason that Hominy, Oklahoma, has become known as the “City of Murals.”