Homegrown artist Sarah Hughes can finally say she has painted her dream wall.

Joined by elected officials, students, school employees and other community members in North Bend on June 1, Hughes held a ceremony to mark the completion of her newest mural.

Covering the side of Pressed on Main, a new restaurant along Main Avenue, the artwork features iconic North Bend imagery and provides a pop of color to a previously blank wall. The mural was created as a partnership between Hughes and students at Two Rivers High School, her alma mater.

North Bend Mayor Rob McFarland praised the project for bringing a spark to downtown, noting how other cities, like Toppenish, have benefited from public art.

“It’s serving the next generation,” he said. “It’s part of the revitalization of downtown.”

For Hughes, the project is more personal, harking back to her days as a teenager in North Bend.

“This project has been really near and dear to my heart,” she told the small crowd gathered on the sidewalk.

Two decades ago, Hughes’ parents opened a tanning salon out of the building her mural now covers. It’s because of that business, she said, that they ended up in North Bend and she enrolled at Two Rivers High School.

Hughes launched her mural business, A Pinch Different, during the pandemic. On a whim, she reached out to Hayley Raff, owner of Pressed on Main, asking if she could paint the building, calling it her “dream wall.”

Raff described their meeting as serendipitous.

“The wall was very unsightly,” she told the Valley Record last month. “It was calling for something to be put on it.”

Hughes began working with Two Rivers students in October, taking them through the whole mural process of drawing mock-ups and eventually translating the art to the wall.

Hughes said the project was aimed at encouraging students to consider careers in arts and embrace what makes them unique.

“This town. This building. This school made me a pinch different,” she said. “That’s this project.”

Sarah Hughes marks out squares for a new mural in downtown North Bend on Nov. 9. Photos Conor Wilson/Valley Record.

Sarah Hughes speaks with students at Two Rivers High School. Photo by Conor Wilson/Valley Record

A Two Rivers student works on the mural on Nov. 9, 2022. File photo Conor Wilson/Valley Record.