Lincoln painting goes unfinished 

Gilbert Stuart never finished his portrait of George Washington. Coleridge was interrupted by a visitor before he could complete “Kubla Khan.”

And then there is the mural of Abraham Lincoln, near the historic Lincoln Depot, that has been declared finished, if not complete, by the man who paid for it.

“It has a spirit to it,” declares local business owner Frank Vala, who last week erected a sign on the incomplete work stating that it would never be finished as first envisioned. “It has a reason to be there.”

Call it a happy but unexpected ending, at least for Vala.

Inspired by a mural of Lincoln on the downtown Alamo tavern that Michael Mayosky painted last year for Downtown Springfield, Inc., Vala contracted with the artist to create a mural on a warehouse he owns alongside railroad tracks adjacent to the depot where Lincoln infamously bade farewell to Springfield in 1861, not far from the Sangamon County courthouse.

“I just thought I’d do something for the community,” says Vala, who owns a trophy company and an in-home care company that provides services to seniors. “I thought, ‘That building just sits there.’ I always liked to keep it clean and at least painted. Why not do something Lincoln on there?” And so Vala made a deal with Mayosky to paint a mural depicting Lincoln’s farewell speech to the capital city.

“I gave him a specific date when it was to be complete,” Vala recalls. “I paid him half the money. He started on it and just kept finding excuses not to be there.”

Mayosky says a number of things got in his way. Norfolk Southern, he says, was concerned that the mechanical lift he used to reach the upper parts of the building might interfere with train traffic. He also says that mechanical problems with a lift forced delay. There was also inclement weather, he says, and the contract with Vala wasn’t ironclad.

“We had a specific date that was a goal date, but if it happened to bleed into next year, I told him it would,” Mayosky says. “It was a very vague contract.”

Weeks, then months, would pass with no progress. There were phone calls. Emails. Even threats of legal action.

“The time frame came and went and I said I wouldn’t need his services anymore,” Vala recalls.

Vala then tried finding another artist to complete the work. He had no luck. Everyone he contacted refused to finish the job without permission from Mayosky, which was not forthcoming. Vala made plans to paint over the unfinished mural with white paint.

Then he started looking at it. And the more Vala looked, the more he saw.

Lincoln appears almost ghostlike on the back of the train, with onlookers appearing as shadows, some holding umbrellas, against the brunt of a storm. You can, at once, see both the mural and the historic depot where

Lincoln began his journey to save a nation at the edge of catastrophe.

“Lots of the tourists who come by take pictures of it,” says Pinky Noll, who purchased the depot with her husband, Jon Gray Noll, an attorney, then renovated it, with the upstairs used as an office and the ground floor open to the public.

Vala has difficulty finding just the right words.

“I don’t know if ‘morbid’ is the right word, or ‘factual,’” Vala says. “To me, the more I look at it, I can feel that I’m actually there.”

And so Vala put up his sign: “Much as the life of Abraham Lincoln ended abruptly, so did this mural. We respectfully dedicate this unfinished work to Springfield’s best known citizen, and America’s greatest president.”

Did he get his money’s worth? “Yes – now that I’ve spent some time cooling off and being hotheaded,” Vala answers. “At least I was smart enough to only pay him for half.”

Mayosky, however, says that he’s owed money and he wants to finish the job. Otherwise, he says, Vala should paint over the unfinished mural and make the wall white again. He says he doesn’t understand why he can’t just finish what he started.

“It’s not like I’m plumbing here,” Mayosky says. “I’m building a work of art that’s going to last ages. As long as I’m doing it, what’s the problem?”

Contact Bruce Rushton at [email protected]