PATRICK'S PEOPLE: Gary Lofts puts a new coat on buildings

A few decades back, when barnstormers would come through the area, a young boy living in the Arma area, about five or six years old, sat mesmerized as a barnstormer painted a picture on the side of the family barn.

“I’d get a Mason jar of ice water, sit out there and watch him for hours,” said Gary Lofts, now Northeast High School art teacher and a noted area mural artist.

His latest project is at the Miners Hall Museum, Franklin. Lofts is starting off by painting three storage buildings on the grounds to resemble a post office, mine recovery station and a mine entrance.

“I’m dealing with icons,” he said as he worked Monday morning. “Every town had to have a post office.”

The mine recovery station, he said, was basically an ambulance barn that would hold a horse-drawn ambulance or a gas-powered Model T with a flat bed, along with rescue equipment such as ropes to use for mine accidents and disasters.

“I’m putting a cross on the mine recovery station because according to research I’ve done, some of them did have crosses,” Lofts said. “

He added that the doors on the building look like they might be able to open at the top half.

“I may paint the doors so they look like they’re open and you can see inside thing building,” Lofts said. “My big thing is perspective, and I like to create illusions of depth.”

A metal storage building will have to be treated with a chemical to make paint stick to it. On the north side of that building will be the illusion of a mine entrance, with men going down a track into a mine.

At that side will be placed an old coal mine hoist which the Miners Hall Museum recently acquired.

“DeWayne and Rita Windsor found it on a piece of their property,” said Phyllis Bitner, a member of the museum board.
“DeWayne was going to scrap it at one point, and Rita suggested he call us so we were able to purchase it from him for the cost of the scrap metal. They delivered it, and Marvin Robarts, who owns Robarts Welding in Franklin, volunteered his time and donated his equipment to place it for us.”

According to research she did on “Practical Machinist - Largest Manufacturing Technology Forum on the Web,” the device was a double cylinder, single friction drum, steam-powered hoisting engine.

Also slated to be moved to the museum grounds is an authentic miner’s house that is currently in Frontenac.

The concluding portion of Lofts’ project, and the biggest, is a mural he plans for the north side of the museum building.

The Miners Hall Museum Foundation is currently seeking funding in the amount of $12,500 to finance the three buildings and the large mural.

“The mural will be 73 feet long and 68 inches high, and will be on metal panels that will attach to the structure,” Lofts said. “I’ll do the panels in my studio.”

He said that the theme will be “The Way We Worked,” and will be a progression from the mid-to-late 1800s to near-current times.

“Linda Knoll and Kaye Lynne Webb are feeding me information,” Lofts said.

He also has some memories to draw on.

“I grew up near No. 9 Mine, which was just a couple of mounds of shale by that time,” he said. “My brother and I used to play there.”

Lofts also remembers that the family home was heated with coal.

“I remember carrying coal in a coal bucket from the shed,” he said. “It was big and chunky, and you had to break it up to make it fit in the stove. There’s nothing like the smell of coal smoke when you get out of bed early in the morning.”

Lofts hopes that he’ll be done with the project around March.

“My wife, Susan, and I are prom sponsors, and that takes a lot of time,” Lofts said.

Right now he’s working four or five hours a day, trying to follow the shade. Once he gets into working on the panels in his studio, he’ll be able to work at his convenience.

“I throw some things on, sleep on it, and come back a few days later and add things or take things out,” Lofts said.

He has created numerous other murals around the area, including one for the Arma centennial and another for the restroom at Immigrant Park, Pittsburg. That one depicts the old Frisco Depot which once stood on the park site at Second and Broadway.

“Communities have to protect their heritage, and it’s such a rich heritage here,” Lofts said.

He hasn’t tired of doing art, which he said can solve a lot of problems.

“It’s a sketch of what you’re doing, a map that will keep you on track,” Lofts said. “If you can visualize something and how to get there, you can do about anything.”

He may retire, but probably will continue painting.

“I’ll carry this brush door to door and see if somebody wants me to put something on a wall,” Lofts said.