Local and Visiting Artists Lend Talents to Mural Project
Visitors to the Farmers’ Market in Uptown Martinsville can feast their eyes on the colorful fruits and vegetables offered – and on vibrant murals that depict produce shopping scenes and the farms from which the goods come.
The Farmers’ Market mural project, unveiled in summer 2009, is part of a public art initiative coordinated by the Piedmont Arts Association and funded by a grant from The Harvest Foundation. The initiative, including murals at the YMCA, the Farmers’ Market and New College Institute, as well as public sculpture, is designed to place art throughout the community.
Children enrolled in an after-school program at the Y created the first mural project on 4-foot by 8-foot wood panels in 2008. It is abstract and depicts expressive colorful figures, says Tina Sell, director of exhibitions for Piedmont Arts.
Renowned Oregon artist Betty LaDuke was hired to create the second mural project, which is on four wood panels and mounted on a building behind the Farmers’ Market. A third mural project, depicting area historical scenes, is scheduled to be painted on the NCI building. The artist for the third project has not been selected.
LaDuke, who painted the Dreaming Cows mural project for Heifer International in Little Rock, Ark., also unveiled in 2009, is known for her extensive travel and multicultural work, Sell says. Her work has been shown at the PAA in the past.
“We invited Betty in, and she visited the market, went on farm visits, talked to a lot of people who go to the market and visited neighborhoods around the market,” Sell says. “We wanted her to capture the multicultural aspect of the Farmers’ Market. We wanted to go to somebody who had a very bright, vibrant and expressive style. We wanted somebody who could depict the livelihood, the vitality, the excitement that the Farmers’ Market is.”
Sell, who has been with Piedmont Arts since 2004, says the placement of public art “shows vitality, shows community support and shows interest in the reinvention or renovation of areas like Uptown that, perhaps, need to be reawakened.
“When you put in public art, it shows people are there. People are enjoying the spaces, and people are taking pride in the events the art depicts,” Sell says. “I would hope that the placement of these murals would depict an interest from the community that already existsbut would also cause more people to come and participate in things like the Farmers’ Market.”
Piedmont Arts is known for its outreach, Sell says, but a lot of it happens in classrooms and settings where the public isn’t always aware of it.
“Part of the public art initiative was to be able to show people we can have a much more public impact as far as our community outreach processes,” Sell says. “And it’s also bringing the value of public art into the everyday routine of people who live here.”
Story by Anne Gillem
