SAINT PAUL, Minn. – To some degree, hockey has always been larger than life in Minnesota. Hold onto your sticks, it’s about it get even grander.
Minnesota artist Terrence Fogarty has begun work on a hockey painting that will ultimately expand to more than 50-feet in height and 300-feet in length – the distance between the goal lines on a football field.
“Nothing I’ve ever done has ever been enlarged that big before,” says Fogarty. “You’ll probably be able to see it from an airplane talking off.”
The mural will hang at the intersection of Cedar and 6th streets in downtown St. Paul on the exterior of the old Macy’s store, currently under renovation as the newly named Treasure Island Center.
The project conceived by the St. Paul Port Authority will contain a top floor skating rink that will serve as the practice facility for the Minnesota Wild. The project is on schedule to be complete this fall.
Fogarty is currently sketching out the mural in his Victoria studio on three smaller scale panels.
Like much of his work, the painting will feature images of youth hockey players. “It was right up my alley,” says Fogarty. “I knew I could do what they wanted me to do.”
Once Fogarty has completed the smaller panels, his work will be reproduced and enlarged to hang on the Treasure Island Center.
Fogarty grew up around hockey in his boyhood St. Paul neighborhood. But his reputation as a hockey artist was cemented in 1998 when the Minnesota State High School League asked to use one of his paintings as a cover photo for the boys’ hockey tournament.
This year, Fogarty painted his 20th cover for the boys’ tourney – with 19 more for the girls’ hockey tournament.
“The tournament has really given me the impetus to paint more and more hockey just because I’ve found there’s a demand for it,” Fogarty says.
The St. Paul mural will be Fogarty’s largest to date. In 2014, he painted a sports-themed mural that now hangs in Marshall, where Fogarty earned his art degree at Southwest Minnesota State University.
The Marshall mural is 72 feet long, less than one-fourth the length of the planned St. Paul mural.