Boulder Artist Created Table Mesa King Soopers Mural To Help 'Feel That Warmth'
BOULDER, Colo. (CBS4) – On Tuesday, the Table Mesa King Soopers remained closed in remembrance of the 10 lives lost a year ago, but each day, a mural inside the front doors of the revamped store honors them and aims to help the community heal.
"It was very palpable how Boulder felt," said Lael Har, the artist behind the mural.
A year after an unforgettable tragedy, healing is still a work in progress for many people in the community. Though she was out of town at the time of the shooting, Har remembers March 22, 2021 as a day that claimed 10 lives and forever changed her longtime home.
"We were getting texts from friends asking if we were safe," Har said. "I've lived in Boulder for the last 23 years. I live in the neighborhood where the King Soopers is."
Like many, Har found solace at the memorial outside the store in the weeks after the shooting, but soon she found healing in her passion.
"For me personally, art is a way that I process emotions," Har said. "When there's a lot of grief and heaviness and tragedy, it's a way that I go to to begin to approach those feelings."
Then last fall, Har took on something bigger when the company commissioned her to paint a mural for the entrance inside the store.
"At first it was very daunting because I felt the weight of my community as I was working through the painting process," she said.
About three months later, her vison became reality in a 24 by 8-foot mural titled "a new day."
"I was inspired by south Boulder; all of the vistas and views and mountains and forests," Har said. "I wanted to take that nature, the beauty that we all love in Boulder and bring it into the painting, bring it into the store."
Now, Har hopes the community finds the same healing she did. She sees the mural as a source of beauty and upliftment where tragedy once struck.
"It's an invitation every time people walk in the store to feel that welcome, feel that warmth that is in the painting," Har said. "The painting is named "a new day" with the hopes that we are reminded of how lucky we are to live in such a beautiful place and to have this community."
These days, Har is putting her art to a good cause again. This time, she's donating the proceeds of some of her paintings towards charities in Ukraine.
You can find those paintings on her Etsy page.
