Mural restoration specialist Tony Castro was astonished at the vibrant colors he began to see emerging from decades of grime on the murals at the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) Hall in Eastport. Castro, who was hired by the Tides Institute & Museum of Art (TIMA), the building's owner, for a two year restoration project of the murals, started work on May 24, and already two panels show a startling transformation.
      GAR halls were built all over the country in the later half of the 19th century as the home of fraternal organizations and social clubs for Union Army veterans of the Civil War. TIMA Director Hugh French says, "The GAR Hall building has a very unique feature with its Civil War mural, the only such murals in Maine, and has long served as a community building, first as a Baptist vestry and then as a military veterans hall." However, over the years the building had suffered from the elements and was threatened and "could easily have been lost."
      The mural is located on the upper walls of the hall's second floor and features symbols representing eight different Union Army corps badges of the Civil War era. Castro's work shows that what looked like a seaweed green background is really a buttery yellow, and a shield with the colors of the flag now has a delicate three dimensional pop from light trompe l'oeil shadowing. A garland of leaves trailing along the bottom edge looks like a garden revived after a long drought. The removal of dirt is painstaking, with Castro using special sponges, dry paint brushes of different sizes and bristle textures and a small vacuum to take care of dust.
      The mural paint is fragile, and too strong a rub or brush stroke could go through the pigment and into the plaster. The south wall, with plaster damage and mural deterioration that Castro thinks may have to be removed and replaced with new plaster and a reproduction mural, shows what water damage can do to such surfaces. However, the other three walls can be restored, and he has been carefully fixing the plaster by pushing it back into place and reinforcing the plaster "keys" squashed between the wood lath with an adhesive formulated to historic preservation standards. It was during this process that he got a hint of the original pigment colors hiding behind the dirt.
      Castro got his start in the 1970s working for a commercial painting company. It was the sign work and repainting logos and lines on old gym floors that he found most rewarding. The company worked with interior designers and decorators and had many upscale clients, including Maine Governor John McKernan. While the Blaine House first floor is kept to historic standards, the second floor is available for the sitting governor to decorate as they please. Castro and his company were at work painting the Blaine House living quarters when he was asked by the governor's secretary if he had stenciling experience. He had, and off he went to a church in Monmouth to restore its interior.
      With the Monmouth experience under his hat, he was more than ready when the director of the Norlands Living History Center in Livermore approached him about work needed at the center's church. "The job came out really nicely," Castro says, and former Maine Historic Preservation Commission Director Earle Shettleworth took notice. "I became the guy" for historic preservation mural restoration projects, "and since the 1980s I've had a steady diet of it," Castro says.
      "Each job has its own set of rules. It's always interesting and changing," Castro adds. Over the years he's had several employees, including his two daughters. Now, in his early 70s, he's beginning to think about retirement, and there's no one to fill his shoes. "No one has wanted the stress. You're working on stuff that is 'priceless,'" he explains. He's also not sure that at this point in his life he wants to take on the time consuming mentoring. Teaching classes at historic preservation institutions, he suggests, might be one strategy to pass along the 40 odd years of his experience and knowledge.
      In the meantime the GAR Hall will have Castro on site working on the mural for the foreseeable future. French says, "As part of our efforts to rebuild and reinvent things here, we look to take on key threatened historic buildings where no one else will and where they make sense for us as we grow. Then we try to restore and reinvent them in ways that fit with our mission and with today's world." The ground floor is housing for TIMA's StudioWorks artist in residence program. "We've also had an extraordinary collection of area Civil War artifacts come into our collections over the past two years. This is allowing us to develop the second floor as a Civil War memorial room and contemporary meeting and work space and justify restoring the murals. We see the GAR Hall as part of our campus of buildings, each with its own special characteristics and capacities. Each contributes to a synergy to a greater creative whole, including fostering new work, preserving historic works and providing a greater understanding of this region. We want all of our buildings to be working buildings again, all contributing to the vitality of this region."