ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) – It was summer in Anchorage, and Robert Wyland had been on a scaffold since early morning, brush in hand, racing the light.<\/p>\n
He didn\u2019t know it yet, but the sun wasn\u2019t going to cooperate \u2014 at least not in the way he expected.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m painting, I\u2019m painting, I\u2019m painting,\u201d Wyland recalled. \u201cAnd I go, geez, I\u2019m getting tired, you know, and I\u2019m watching the sun. It still hasn\u2019t set. I go, what time is it? 4:30 a.m.\u201d<\/p>\n
He laughed at the memory. The midnight sun had swallowed his sense of time. By the time he climbed down, he said he had painted through the night without realizing it.<\/p>\n
That mural \u2014 a sweeping, life-size rendering of bowhead whales and belugas on a building in downtown Anchorage \u2014 has stood for decades on the side of the 5th Avenue Mall. A traveler sent Wyland a photo of it just last week.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you\u2019ve seen it lately, I\u2019ve never seen a wall that old look that good,\u201d he said. \u201cIt was in perfect condition. <\/p>\n
\u201cAlaska, salute you.\u201d<\/p>\n
That mural was one stop on a journey that has defined Wyland\u2019s life. Inspired as a boy by Jacques Cousteau, he began painting whales at age four and never really stopped. <\/p>\n
In 1981, he completed his first large-scale marine mural in Laguna Beach, California. When a reporter asked how many he planned to paint, he answered without thinking: 100. <\/p>\n
He spent the next three decades making good on that number, and then some, painting life-size whales and ocean life on the sides of buildings from Portland, Maine, to Key West; from Havana to Beijing, logging 12 cities in 12 weeks on one tour alone, starting right here in Anchorage. More than 100 murals in all, each one a gift, he says, to the city that received it.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy whole idea is to raise public awareness,\u201d he said. \u201cI wanted a billion people impressions a year to see the whales in public art, to become more sensitized and make the connection that the beautiful ocean, these whales, they really need our voice.\u201d<\/p>\n
For Wyland, the walls were never just paint. They were a mission. And for the communities that grew up around them, they became something else entirely, landmarks, touchstones, pieces of a city\u2019s identity as fixed and familiar as any monument. <\/p>\n
The Anchorage mural, he says, is no different.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe people own these murals,\u201d he said. \u201cThey become the fabric, you know, of a community like Anchorage. You know, that wall is sacred to people.\u201d<\/p>\n
Now, as the world\u2019s attention turns to Dallas and the 2026 FIFA World Cup, Wyland finds himself in a very different kind of fight, one that he says cuts to the heart of what public art means, who it belongs to, and what the law says about destroying it.<\/p>\n
Buried in Blue<\/p>\n
The call came through his assistant. A man in a Dallas parking lot had sent an email: workers were painting over Wyland\u2019s iconic whale mural, a landmark he completed in 1999, with dark blue paint.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe told me and I said, can you ask them to send a picture?\u201d Wyland said. \u201cAnd I mean, it was disturbing, you know.\u201d<\/p>\n
By the time the image arrived, it was already too late to stop it. The mural, which Wyland describes as part of Dallas\u2019s public art collection, had been covered over in preparation for FIFA World Cup branding ahead of matches scheduled in the city this summer.<\/p>\n
Wyland calls it \u201cblue washing.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou know how you whitewash the wall?\u201d he said. \u201cWell, it was blue, so I got a new word.\u201d<\/p>\n
The story went viral almost immediately. Wyland appeared on CNN. ESPN picked it up for the sports angle. He says more than a million people have voiced their outrage online.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople are generally really mad at FIFA for instigating this, and it\u2019s all their fault,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
FIFA and the building\u2019s current owner have not been without response. Wyland says they claimed to have been in communication with him and his foundation before the painting began.<\/p>\n
\u201cTotal lie,\u201d he said flatly. \u201cTotal lie. They never talked to us. They just did it and thought they could get away with it.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said a video sent to him showed six or seven blank walls nearby that could have been used for FIFA advertising instead.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut no, they have to destroy one that really was part of the history of Dallas\u2019 public art collection,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The law behind the brush<\/p>\n