The brisk air blew autumn leaves outside the Antique Sandwich Company near Ruston on Tuesday as Mary Mann painted the glass windows with a steady hand. Although it’s not winter, the restaurant’s panes were becoming frosted with snowflakes, foxes, rabbits, bears, raccoons and moose.
Mann told The News Tribune the annual winter scene came early this year because she is leaving Wednesday for Montana to take care of family for a couple of months.
The muralist’s colorful, intricate paintings decorate more than 30 buildings around Tacoma and Pierce County. Commissioned in part by neighborhood councils, Mann’s works are beloved landmarks of nature and local history.
Since 2011 two Indigenous mermaids surrounded by sea life have adorned the side of the Antique Sandwich Company. In 2023 Mann completed a large colorful series of murals on the underpass of Schuster Parkway next to Chinese Reconciliation Park. A fist with ‘253’ finger tattoos clutches a bunch of dandelions on the corner of 6th Avenue and North Prospect Street. Railroad workers and timber barons pose on the corner of South 56th Street and South Washington Street off South Tacoma Way. An elaborate mural of Wright Park is visible from the Stadium Thriftway parking lot and, another garnishes the Tacoma Little Theater on North I Street…