BROOKINGS – Gestalt. “It means that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts,” explained Ashley Biggar, Brookings Chamber of Commerce director of key operations and development, as she pitched in with a roller and paint brush on June 4 as a mural took shape in the alley on the north side of the 300 block of Fifth Street.

Connie and Axel Seward, pictured, were among the local community members who participated in the paint-by-numbers mural that now covers a big piece of the alley wall of Wooden Legs Brewing Company in downtown Brookings.

“When we create a mural as a community, we’re better than we are by ourselves,” added Ashley Ragsdale, executive director of the Brookings Arts Council. 

She, too, was wielding a brush and roller, helping make sure things matched – the right color going in the right numbered space. The two Ashleys took on painting the higher parts of the mural. That involved some climbing up tall ladders.

The other project painters that day came from the SoDak Spurs Soccer Club and from the local community.

“I drafted it and came up with a graph,” Biggar explained. “I did the outlining and the numbers. It’s like a giant paint-by-numbers.” The right color has to be painted in the right space.

Brian Gatzke owns the building, and Wooden Legs Brewing Company is the tenant.