Drivers heading west through Airway Heights have spent the last few weeks watching a brightly colored mural take shape on the wall of Billie’s Diner at 13008 W. Sunset Highway.
The mural, which has an aviation theme, ties together the local landscape with nearby Fairchild Air Force Base, celebrating all things flight. Artist Missy Kupka featured not only airplanes that locals have commonly seen flying near the base, but also various flying creatures, including a bee and a dragonfly. Kupka said the insects she featured are “natural aviators.”
Kupka was moved to include the local landscape and insects because she knows that Billie’s Diner is a farm to table restaurant, serving food from local farms whenever possible. “I had come to the soft opening of Billie’s and loved it,” she said. “I knew they worked with local farmers.”
Billie’s Diner owner McKenzie DonTigny said the city approached her last year after they received a grant to pay for local art as part of their downtown revitalization effort, wanting to put a mural on the side of her building. DonTigny said her diner is located in one of the original Airway Heights buildings that were built shortly after the nearby Air Force base opened. Those core buildings are considered the downtown area.
“I know they were focused on the two blocks between Lawson and Lundstrum,” she said. “We’re very focused on community. I felt very honored the city was considering a mural for us. I thought it was a good way to connect to the community and tell the story of this area.”
DonTigney said she was willing to have a mural installed and the city put out a call for artists, which Kupka responded to. DonTigney helped review the two dozen applications, and selected Kupka’s. “I liked Missy’s take on blending technology and nature,” she said. “That really symbolizes Airway Heights’ combination of agriculture and technology.”
Kupka has been interested in art nearly for as long as she can remember. “I had an amazing elementary school art teacher,” she said. “He was just so enthusiastic about art.”
When she was in first grade, her art teacher submitted one of her drawings into a local competition. Kupka was pleased and encouraged when she took third place in a contest that included much older students. “I got third place in the whole county,” she said.
She took art classes all through school and originally was studying art in college. However, she thought she didn’t fit in with the other art students and second guessed her choice. “I switched my major halfway through to advertising,” she said.
Though she did minor in art and art history, Kupka worked for a printing company after college. She met and married her husband, a computer animator. The couple moved to Airway Heights nine years ago.
Kupka is now a stay at home mom who considers art her side job. She’s helped on a couple of outdoor murals in Toronto and has done smaller indoor murals by herself, but the mural on Billie’s Diner is her first solo outdoor mural.
Kupka started working on the mural the first week of July. She used a virtual reality headset to trace her mural on the wall, then spent hours and hours carefully bringing her vision to life with the paintbrush in her hand. A lot of that time was spent on a ladder, but Kupka said she often didn’t notice how far off the ground she was.
“Once you’re up there, you’re just in the zone of painting,” she said.
She often painted early in the morning and in the evening to avoid the worst of the summer heat. Hot temperatures make the paint sticky, Kupka said. “The paint brush will stick to the wall,” she said. “It has happened.”
Customers would often stop to chat with Kupka on their way in or out. Some, thinking she worked there, asked about the menu. Others commented that the mural was looking great. “’You missed a spot’ is a big favorite,” Kupka said. “Interacting with the public has been very fun.”
In addition to a bee and a dragonfly in the bottom corners, there are also flowers, a large butterfly and a red ladybug. Flying above it all is a Huey helicopter FAFB uses for rescue missions, a KC-135 tanker often seen in the skies overhead and a B-29, a propeller-driven bomber that was heavily used during World War II.
Bright colors are used throughout the mural, including in geometric shapes and lines meant to represent the patchwork of farmland seen in the West Plains.
Kupka said she’s enjoyed her time spent painting the side of Billie’s Diner. After the mural gets final approval from the city, she’ll apply a clear coat to the building to help protect the colors from fading. “I’ve enjoyed being at this location,” she said. “It’s easy to be inspired because I’d been here before and knew the vibe.”
Kupka is just one of the regulars who visit the diner, known for its fluffy pancakes. Those pancakes come in seasonal flavors depending on what’s in season at local farms. In the spring, the pancakes are lavender lemon flavored. In the summer, blueberries make an appearance. In the fall, apple and pumpkin flavors dot the menu.
In addition to the menu, what sets Billie’s Diner apart from other restaurants is their use of a Giving Wall, where diners can prepay a meal for someone else. If someone is in need of a meal, they simply go to the wall, pull down a paid receipt and get a meal. Sometimes the people who get a free meal are homeless or in need and sometimes it’s someone who forgot their wallet that day and come back later to replace the meal they used by buying a new prepaid meal, DonTigney said.
She said that about five people a day use the wall to get a free meal and she knows that for some, it might be their only meal that day. “It’s one of my favorite things that we do here,” DonTigny said.
Customers have reacted positively to the mural taking shape, DonTigny said. “They think it’s so cool,” she said. “Every time you look at it you see something new.”
