At first glance, it seems like a woman holding a child is peering into the window at Karl’s Meat Market in Downtown Abbotsford. Beside her, two other children look through the glass, the reflection of their faces shine back at them.
It’s window shopping at its best.
But there is no window. And there is no woman, or children, just a brick wall painted by local artist Dean Lauze.
The new mural on the side of Karl’s Meats is a replacement for an older version that had slowly faded.
But the new one is more than a mural, it’s an homage.
Doug Ensink has owned Karl’s Meats for the past six years when he took over from his father, Karl, who started the business in 1966.
The first version of the mural was painted in 1997. The original was created to give the impression of a window into the store. When the time came to repaint the building, the mural was lost.
“We got some flak from the public for that,” said Ensink.
After contacting Lauze, it was decided to redo the mural. However, the generic grandmother and child in the first version needed to be replaced with something a little more significant.
“He asked if I would like to put my children in there.”
Ensink thought it was a great idea. Then they took the project one step further.
Three years ago, Ensink’s mother-in-law, Sherry Kingma, passed away from cancer. It was the perfect choice to use her image as the grandmother.
Ensink brought Lauze photos of Kingma and his three children, Karl, Pearl and Daniel and the image was created.
“It’s special too because Daniel never met her. He’s two and a half and now she’s holding him in the mural.”
Response to the new mural has been “fantastic.”
People are taking pictures of it and posing looking through the window.
“It’s just another nice community project that’s adding to the revitalization of Downtown Abbotsford,” he said.
Karl’s Meat Market is located at 2621 West Railway St. in downtown Abbotsford.
