SPRINGFIELD — Next to the front door of the 116-year-old downtown building that houses Emerald Art Center, a plaque notes its history as the former home of Gerlach’s Drug Store. The building is more famous, however, for the mural on the west wall: the colorful, larger-than-life “Official Simpsons Mural” that was painted in collaboration with The Simpsons creator Matt Groening in 2014.
The scene — Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa, and Maggie enjoying a day in the woods — is the No. 1 tourist spot in this Willamette Valley city of approximately 61,000, according to Guy Weese, president of the Emerald Art Center Board.
The center’s exterior may be popular with tourists, but the inside was designed with the local art community in mind. It contains multiple rooms and galleries, a gift shop with work mostly by members, a studio where workshops and classes are held, including a youth summer camp, and an art library and information room where you’ll encounter The Simpsons once more, in three-dimensional form. The life-sized replica of the family, sitting on a couch, was a prop created as promotional material for The Simpsons Movie, released in 2007…