An artist’s design for an Elgin coffee mug has been transformed into a wall mural at downtown DuPage Court.
“I loved it,” Ashley Klockenga said of the mug-inspired mural project. “It’s really exciting. It’s going to be mind-blowing.”
Klockenga, who goes by the name Ashley Ann professionally, pitched the idea of an Elgin mug to Dream Hall, Viator Coffee and Blue Box Café in September. In the past, she has partnered with other locations to create mugs featuring landmarks in towns around northern Illinois, including Crystal Lake, St. Charles, Cary, Naperville and her hometown of Plainfield.
Dream Hall owner Kevin Echevarria said they all agreed to have the mug made and sold exclusively at the three downtown locations.
Viator Coffee is a vendor within Dream Hall, a community incubator business space at 51 S. Grove Ave.
One of Dream Hall’s purposes is supporting Elgin’s art scene, Echevarria said. A wall facing DuPage Court has been designated for local artists’ murals, the first of which was of Rocky Lopez done by local artist Joel Feliciano. Lopez, a well-known community figure and entrepreneur, died in a motorcycle accident in August 2023.
The Lopez mural stayed on the wall for more than a year. When Echevarria and his wife, Yesenia, decided they wanted to commission a new piece, “We really wanted something that was Elgin-centered,” he said.
Klockenga’s design became the obvious choice, he said. “All the pieces fell into place,” he said.
Klockenga, now based in Canada, made her first community mug in 2019 and has expanded her pieces annually every year since. Behind each one is the same goal: to celebrate the unique aspects of the community, she said.
She starts by researching the community. Elgin has a lot of history so she picked landmarks iconic to the city: Elgin National Watch Co., Gail Borden Public Library, the U-46 Planetarium, Elgin Fire Barn No. 5 and Lords Park pavilion among them.
Echevarria approached Klockenga with the idea of turning her mug artwork into a mural and received her blessing and help.
Feliciano was tapped to do the work, and started helping Echevarria with the logistics of getting a mural painted. This project is different for him because he’s replicating another artist’s work, Feliciano said.
“This is all her artwork. I’m just painting it,” he said. “Every artist is unique, and every artist has their own reasons for painting.”
Working mostly at night using illumination to light the scene, Feliciano said he liked the landmarks Klockenga chose and the overall design and the colors, which he tranferred to the 35-foot-by-11-foot wall. The magnitude “was kind of mind-blowing,” he said.
There were a few hiccups in the process, like the grooves on the building’s wall and other variables, but the experience has been fun, he said.
Klockenga has been keeping up with the progress by “stalking it online,” and praised what she’s seen. “(He’s) doing an amazing job,” she said.
The finishing touches were completed over last week in time for this week’s dedication of the newly renovated DuPage Court and Downtown Neighborhood Association of Elgin’s annual Holly Days and Small Business Saturday activities.
Gloria Casas is a freelance reporter for The Courier-News.
