Nine years ago, Ruben Mein of Fortuna watched a YouTube clip that opened the door on a new creative endeavor.

“I saw a time-lapse window painting video on YouTube and thought I would give it a try,” said Mein, who was working as the closing supervisor at Murphy’s Market in Cutten at the time. He asked his then-manager, Travis Jones, if he could try to paint a colorful scene on a window on the market storefront.

“(He) allowed me to give it a shot,” said Mein, who since then has painted many hundreds of storefront windows for local and regional businesses, adding a splash of whimsy and family friendly fun to the mix.

“Most of them are within an hour’s drive from Fortuna. I have been called to travel south a couple of times to paint advertisement windows for Permit Services in Santa Rosa,” he said.

Today, Mein is manager of the Murphy’s Market in Cutten, and he paints commercial windows on the weekends.

“I mostly paint in the fall and winter as the demand is high for Halloween and Christmas,” he said. “There have been a handful of special events or sales that businesses have reached out and requested in the off-season.

“I take a week off from Murphy’s after Thanksgiving to focus on the heavy influx of Christmas and winter window splash,” added Mein, who says he’s been drawing “for as long as I can remember.”

“(I) took various art classes through high school and college,” he said, “but the lessons that I learned the most were from my time as a kid in the Rural Burl Mural Bureau. Taught by Duane Flatmo, he worked with youth to beautify downtown Eureka by designing and painting large-scale murals as a team. After overcoming the learning curve from painting on glass, there were many transferable skills and techniques that came through naturally. I am still practicing new ways to improve, and I will never stop learning.”

Over the years, Mein has painted windows at Babe’s Pizza-Pasta in Cutten, Stars Hamburgers in Eureka, Shafer’s Ace Hardware and the Southern Humboldt Chamber of Commerce, to name a few. And of course, he continues to paint windows at the Murphy’s Markets in the area. He has also been involved with special projects.

“I worked with Warner Bros. at the end of 2023 and painted the windows for a scene in ‘One Battle After Another,’” said Mein, who works with each individual business on its specific needs.

“Some places will give me a theme and let me come up with whatever I want or need to do to fill the windows and still hit the theme,” Mein said. “Others have a very specific layout or a set message and idea. For the most part … I just come up with something family friendly that fits their business and grabs people’s attention. Sometimes, I will reuse ideas or characters if they fit or are specifically requested.”

Mein says window painting offers him a creative outlet while filling a need for businesses.

“I don’t see window painting as much as I did growing up,” he said. “Keeping up this tradition has proven to be a win/win. And although it started for personal gain, it has grown to something more, as families will often stop and watch with their kids. This has led to a tradition of hiding a duck silhouette in every storefront painting I have done in the last four years of the nine years I have been painting. I have started handing out duck stickers while painting to the kids, as I have wholeheartedly embraced it. Families come back to ‘duck hunt,’ and maybe one of the kids will be inspired to paint their own windows one day.”

For more information, check out Mein Visual Designs on Facebook or call Ruben Mein at 707-273 0268.