The Muralist: Artist splashes downtown with color

You'd never know that Kim Polomka has a fear of heights.

The Australian-born artist recently completed a mural that's 65 feet long and 26 feet tall - and it's waaay up on the side of a building.

The Giddings Lofts are downtown, at Tejon and Kiowa streets; the north face of the four-story building looms over a one-story structure hunched between its neighbors.

"It was a big, big concrete wall that you could see from a couple blocks away. It was crying for a mural," said Janelle Walston, who is marketing the lofts.

The idea didn't get off the ground until Polomka came along.

"I saw the wall and thought, ‘Wow, that's an amazing thing, especially from Acacia Park,'" he said. He contacted Walston in late 2007, and she leaped at the chance to include his work in the lofts project. So did Dan Robertson, the developer.

Walston had seen Polomka's downtown murals celebrating Mozart's 250th birthday and the city's sisterhood with Nuevo Casas Grandes, Mexico, and knew he was the right man for the job.

Artist, developer and marketer wanted to pay homage to the Giddings legacy. The Giddings dry goods store opened on Tejon Street in 1874 and, in 1898, moved into its new home, the city's tallest building at that time.

Today, that building and the "annex" next door house 19 residential lofts, along with businesses on the ground floor.

"We were brainstorming in my conference room about everyone's vision for the piece, and I pulled out a couple of furniture tags we had found in the floorboards," Walston said. "We always knew we wanted to somehow pay tribute to the Giddings department store and Kim took the idea and came up with this fabulous concept."

Polomka decided to add a spool of thread and a button, symbolizing connections.

That took care of the inspiration; the preparation and perspiration came next. In July, Polomka started sketching in Photoshop, a computer program, while figuring out the logistics.

"You've got two buildings, with another one-story one in between," he said. "I had two scaffolding companies come out and they said, ‘It's too difficult, and it's going to cost a fortune.'"

But then Robertson found TW Stucco, and soon the scaffolding was set up on the roof of the one-story building.

"They did a fantastic job. Considering I'm someone with a fear of heights, I thought, ‘Wow, great stuff.'"

Polomka took his first brush stroke in late July or early August. He's hazy on the details because his wife, Jennifer Malenky, gave birth to their son, Max, in August.

Being a father has made Polomka more cautious about safety. While painting, he wore a helmet and attached himself to the scaffolding. He'd hoped to recruit students to help, but safety concerns sank that idea.

"I think (the community would) rather have a flat Australian than a flat American," he said, laughing.

The mural's size and challenging location meant he had to descend to terra firma occasionally for a long-range view of the composition.

"I'd go to Acacia Park, take a photo, come home, put it on the computer and check," he said.

But the physical and artistic labors have been worth it, Polomka said. From his perch, he could see Palmer High School students in the park, pointing at the mural. He hopes it'll pique their interest in art and history.

Walston is thrilled with the results.

"It makes me smile," she said. "The colors, the vision of the different pieces hanging off the edge of the building is light and whimsical." Walston and Robertson hope to tap Polomka's talent for their other properties.

He started painting at 13 and, in 1972, earned his bachelor of fine arts degree from the South Australian School of Art in Adelaide. Launching his career in Australia was a mixed blessing.

It was an elitist environment, he said, but artists feel much more supported and respected there.

He met Malenky, a Colorado Springs native, in 1998 while she was vacationing in Australia.

"We just connected, and she told me about this town," Polomka recalled. "I was going through a bit of change and I needed to do something 360."

The different attitude about art in America forced him to diversify.

Since moving here, Polomka has painted cows, large fiberglass ones for the 2006 CowParade in Denver. He branched out with a fiberglass elk that appeared in Colorado Springs and Cripple Creek in 2007.

"I never did this stuff in Australia. I was always a ‘fine artist.' But coming here opened my eyes to a whole different avenue."

He teaches through the Seniors Making Art program, which goes into retirement communities. His students tap into their long-suppressed artistic talents, and their joy inspires him.

"It's really remarkable. Kids have a natural ability - you can give them a piece of string and they'll do something with it. But then they get older, they get careers, they get married, and they're told by society that art doesn't have any value."

When working on his award-winning acrylic paintings, he also finds inspiration in the local landscape, from the smallest pebbles to the landmark looming on the western skyline.

"I get very passionate, as an outsider, that this is the most important thing about Colorado Springs, those mountains," Polomka said. "And it's important, when you build things, you don't obscure the mountains. They're just beautiful. They change every season and with the light source."

The former Aussie feels at home in Colorado Springs, and he's actively involved with the Pikes Peak Arts Council and the Arts Commission of the Pikes Peak Region.

Polomka is doing everything he can to help Colorado Springs live up to its aesthetic potential - one canvas, one student, one blank wall at a time.