On my travels I am drawn to murals. I find these works of art to be sources of information about the town, the region, the culture, and the people. I especially love that some places are now celebrating artistic abilities and purposefully giving a canvas to muralists. Businesses and towns have given permission to cover buildings - not with malicious graffiti, but with bold statement pieces that give voice to talented individuals. You will notice this post title says Part 1 because, while I am focusing on a particular mural today, there are others I anticipate sharing about in the future.
In searching for sites to see in Oklahoma City, one suggestion was the “Buffalo Goddess 2” mural. The information shared that I would find it on Route 66 on the wall of a grocery landmark that also boasted a large milk bottle. All that plus a mural?? I’m in! I set out to find this special space.
In my care not to pull in front of oncoming traffic at the oddest little street crossing, I almost passed it. If I had sneezed I would have missed it. I was expecting a large grocery store with a full side-of-the-building mural. Had it not been for the large milk bottle I would never have seen the building. The brick structure is odd in that it is triangular and sits in a kind of median that divides the incoming and outgoing traffic of a side road off Historic Route 66.
Each side of the building measures less than two small car lengths. I am not exaggerating. The milk bottle on top of the building appears to be taller than the building itself. And on a day dripping with humidity and rising into the 90s, the image of a Braum’s ice cream-topped waffle cone on the large bottle had me longing for a cold, sweet treat.
Built in the 1930s as a grocery store, the bottle advertising for a local dairy farm was added in 1948. The site was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1998. The building and the bottle have experienced remodeling over the years. It has housed numerous businesses including a barbecue shack, a cleaners, a fruit market, and was a nail salon on the day I made my stop.
It is cute, it is perfectly Route 66 quirky, and all that brings me back to the mural. In the confusion of navigating around its odd placement in the road, I almost missed the building as well as the mural. Also contributing to me almost missing it was my expectations. I had seen the mural images online and expected it to be grand. But even grand pianos have a baby grand version, right? And so it is for this piece of art. At MAYBE three feet wide and at most seven feet tall (you can see its scale of size in the pictures above), the mural is grand in its fullness of life and symbolism, celebrating the history of the area. It boasts feathers of the state’s bird, the delightful scissor-tailed flycatcher I was fortunate enough to catch a glimpse of on my trip. And to honor the heritage and culture of the region, a Native American goddess rides atop a buffalo.
This small (in comparison to my usual expectations) mural is packed with meaning and encouraged me to learn more about the region, its people, and OKC heritage. And learning from this site teaches me not to discount the small things. Besides the saying “Good things come in small packages,” it also brings to mind that God can do the mightiest of things out of the smallest of details. And the Buffalo Goddess 2 mural on the little grocery store reminds me to expect God to do just that. I tend to have my eyes trained on the next big thing or place. But God may be showing up in the unexpected smaller items and out-of-the-way places. And if I’m not careful, I just might look past a small site - or sight - and miss something grand after all.
More for the journey…
Spend some time this week reflecting on scriptures about God doing much with an everyday, ordinary little detail. Here are some to get you started…
David and a few small stones - 1 Samuel 17
The widow and a small amount of oil - 2 Kings 4
Jesus, a boy, and a lunch - Matthew 14:13-21
A seed becomes more - Mark 4:30-32
Oh, I love this adventure, Jenny! So obscure and fascinating. Thank you for taking me there. I enjoyed it.
I love this! All of my visits to OKC over the years and I never heard of this!