Public art can be fleeting. Check out these Chapel Hill murals while they last.
Chapel Hill’s downtown “Sea Turtles” mural was demolished in July almost without a word — nothing like the stir created in 2013 when another beloved artwork on West Franklin Street was painted black.
For 20 years, UNC football fans tailgated in the Turtle parking lot on North Columbia Street and real estate agents stopped by to show clients some of the town’s great art, said muralist Michael Brown. People used to say, “Meet me at Turtle lot.”
He was saddened when town officials told him the mural — and the parking deck he painted it on — would be demolished to make way for a larger, town-owned parking deck. But he’s seen it happen many times, Brown said, from “Musical Youth” and “Trees & Seasons,” to “Pencil,” “The Cave” and “Many Earths,” which could be the next to go.
“Things change,” Brown said. “They’re not museum pieces. They’re not Rembrandts. I think most muralists know what they‘re getting into when they put something on the side of a building.”
Murals make the landscape more interesting and can become a “point of pride,” displaying community values in a big way, said Susan Brown, director of the Chapel Hill Public Library and executive director of the town’s Community Arts and Culture division.
A local mural’s average lifespan is really just eight to 12 years, depending on the building and its owner, she and others said.
“I know that personally when I go visit a new city or town, and I see murals or I’ve heard that it’s a town with great murals, I go looking for them, and that might take me to a street where I discover a great coffee shop or a neighborhood that I decide to come back to and linger more in,” Susan Brown said.
New artists, ideas about art
The town’s revised mural program, based on best practices and consultations with Raleigh and Durham officials about their mural programs, is focused on diversity and inclusion, history, and a desire to help new artists shine.
Last year, the program got an infusion of money when the pandemic canceled festivals and other events. The town also expanded its definition of a mural to include artists working in spray paint as well as brushes, vinyl murals or building wraps, and art banners, like those added to Peace and Justice Plaza outside the U.S. Post Office downtown.
Murals also started showing up in unusual places — wrapped around utility boxes, lining vacant storefronts and bus shelters, and beautifying sewer access pipes along the town’s greenways.
Now, a new generation is making its mark. Among them is Brown’s former intern Scott Nurkin and Raleigh artist Kiara Sanders, who recently completed the “African American Trailblazers” mural at 111 S. Merritt Mill Road.
Preserving history
Trailblazers, commissioned by the Chapel Hill-Carrboro Area Alumnae Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Inc. in partnership with Carrboro and Chapel Hill, depicts 12 Black men and women who shaped the community. It replaced Brown’s faded “Quilt Pattern” mural painted in 1996 on the north wall of Walt’s Grill.
Sanders had heard from friends who lived in Chapel Hill that they never felt like they belonged. However, in talking with older residents who passed by to offer a critique or a story, she learned about the historically African-American community that lived and thrived in town.
“Through the art, I was able to portray these trailblazers, these people that had these businesses, who actually served their community,” Sanders said. “I can’t speak for any person who might pass by it, but upon seeing the faces, my hope is that someone ... can (know) more about the people in the area. I think knowing who is around you and keeping history alive can definitely make these connections happen more.”
Nurkin’s latest project is preserving a different type of history at 111 N. Merritt Mill Road. The larger-than-life portrait of Carrboro native and iconic blues musician Elizabeth Cotten is part of his North Carolina Musicians Mural Project.
Nurkin noted the life of a muralist is a complex orchestration of funding, proposals, people, research and photo licensing, travel, tools and paint. A typical painting can cost up to $15,000 or more, depending on the size, he said, and can take anywhere from a couple of days to several months.
It’s not a glamorous life, but it lets you work outdoors, travel and meet interesting characters, while flexing your “art muscle,” he said.
“I’ve run into some of the most unique, insanely funny and just off-the-wall people,” he said. “Sometimes, it’s homeless people or just people that have opinions that want to share with you very openly. I don’t know how many people in their lines of work get that stuff daily.”
Chapel Hill murals to visit
The town had well over 150 murals at last count, beginning with 1941’s “Laying the Cornerstone of Old East,” painted by famed illustrator Dean Cornwell inside the U.S. Post Office on East Franklin Street. Many more have been added over the last several years, including in Carrboro and Hillsborough.
Here are some of the many murals around Orange County and and links to two self-guided tours to get you started: tinyurl.com/mrx3fx9v and tinyurl.com/3jfd8j34. Be sure to keep an eye out for pop-up murals and graffiti.
▪ Name: African American Trailblazers
Artist: Kiara Sanders
Location: 111 S. Merritt Mill Road (Walt’s Grill and Ms. Molly’s Gift Shop)
Date completed: 2021
More information: Sanders painted this mural honoring 12 Black residents for their contributions to Carrboro and Chapel Hill. Learn more about them at chapelhillhistory.org/aatrailblazers.
▪ Name: Dean Smith
Artist: Scott Nurkin
Location: 1950 U.S. 15-501 North, Chapel Hill (Behind the Exxon gas station at Smith Level Road and U.S. 15-501)
Date completed: 2015
More information: Scott Nurkin painted this tribute to legendary UNC coach Dean Smith — who Nurkin called “the greatest coach in college basketball” — following his death in 2015.
▪ Name: Parade of Humanity
Artist: Michael Brown
Location: 138 E. Franklin St. (Porthole Alley)
Date completed: 1997
More information: One of the town’s most iconic murals was inspired by the Circus Parade carving that once hung in the Circus Room soda fountain and snack bar on UNC’s campus. The carving now hangs in the George Watts Hill Alumni Center. Brown continues to update the details and personalities in his Porthole Alley mural, most notably after someone sprayed the words “Black Lives Matter” on it in 2014.
▪ Name: Greetings from Chapel Hill
Artist: Scott Nurkin
Location: 112 1/2 W. Franklin St. (parking lot behind He’s Not Here)
Date completed: 2013
More information: Painted in the style of a 1941 postcard by German-American illustrator Curt Teich, this could be his most rewarding work, Nurkin said. “I still get almost daily someone taking a picture of it and tagging it. It’s been on ESPN. Roy Williams has taken pictures in front of it, and every Carolina basketball player seems to have taken a picture of it. It’s cool to be part of something that people are interested in.”
▪ Name: Elizabeth Cotten
Artist: Scott Nurkin
Location: 111 N. Merritt Mill Road (on the Cut Above Barbershop)
Date completed: 2021
More information: One in a statewide series of murals honoring native musicians. Carrboro native Elizabeth Cotten, is a folk and blues musician best known for her song, “Freight Train.” Her distinctive style came from playing her guitar upside down and left-handed. The mural is in the town’s historically Black Midway Business District.
▪ Name: The Blue Mural
Artist: Michael Brown
Location: 109 E. Franklin St. (parking lot behind Epilogue Books)
Date completed: 1989
More information: Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools students helped Brown paint his first Chapel Hill mural — depicting a silhouette of the town against a blue night sky — by making uniform dots of paint.
▪ Name: Wildflowers
Artist: Shannon O’Connor, with help from Autumn Spencer and Melissa Swingle
Location: 407 W. Rosemary St.
Date completed: 2020
More information: This recent mural of wildflowers under stormy skies is tucked behind The Cave, a bar on West Franklin Street. It’s accessible from the alley between North Roberson Street and West Rosemary Street. Also in the alley: the “Power to the People” mural, a graphic utility box quoting scripture, and a bright orange wall celebrating “The Human Race.”
▪ Name: Jigsaw Puzzle
Artist: Michael Brown
Location: Varsity Alley, 121 E. Franklin St.
Date completed: 1999
More information: Located in Varsity Alley, off East Franklin Street. One wall is Carolina blue and the other is Duke blue. Both are painted with interlocking puzzle pieces. The town commissioned the work to discourage graffiti.
▪ Name: Successions
Artist: Renzo Ortega
Location: 505 W. Franklin St. (TOPO Distillery)
Date completed: 2021
More information: The mural represents the seasons of a family through loss, absence and hope for reconciliation, according to Ortega. It’s one of several graphic art pieces added as part of the temporary Downtown Vinyl project.
▪ Name: Water’s Perfect Memory
Artist: Max Dowdle
Location: Lower Booker Creek Trail meadow near East Franklin Street
Date completed: 2020
More information: Town staff worked with the Orange Water and Sewer Authority to launch this project aimed at improving the aging manholes. Silhouettes of native wildlife on a blue background represents the waters of Booker Creek and the life it supports.
▪ Name: Florifauns
Artist: J Massullo
Location: Bolin Creek Greenway tunnel under Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard
Date completed: 2020
More information: Working at times from a cherry-picker scaffold, the artist used spray paint to create a world of insects, animals and plants. In 2021, the town commissioned Massullo for a second work near this location, where a group of Chapel Hill High School students joined him to paint OWASA pipes along the greenway.
▪ Name: The Universe Moves Us
Artist: Daniel LeClair
Location: Bolin Creek Greenway tunnel near Pritchard Avenue
Date completed: 2018
More information: The first town-commissioned mural along the Bolin Creek Greenway was done at the end of a restoration project that shored up the creek banks and created a stable, handicap-accessible trail for bikes and pedestrians. High school students from the Boomerang and Volunteers for Youth Programs helped paint this mural.
Carrboro murals to visit
▪ Name: Black Lives Matter
Artist: Tyrone Smalls and Erbriyon Barrett
Location: 125 W. Main St. and 100 N. Greensboro St.
Date completed: 2020-21
More information: Smalls worked with a group of students to paint the first mural, which memorializes Black men killed by police, on the side of the CommunityWorx building. Barrett painted the second mural, a simple statement using black and white letters and contrasting blocks — Black Lives Matter — outside the Carrboro Century Center.
▪ Name: We Are Community
Artist: Jermaine “JP” Powell
Location: Gray Squirrel Coffee Co., 300 E. Main St.
Date completed: 2020
More information: Powell worked with The ArtsCenter to photograph an array of Carrboro residents for the mural, which represents the town’s diversity.
▪ Name: Honey Bee Mural
Artist: Matthew Willey
Location: 301 W. Main St., Carrboro
Date completed: 2016
More information: The mural was painted on the northwestern wall of Fire Station No. 1 in downtown Carrboro as part of the Good of the Hive Initiative. The movement’s goal was painting 50,000 honey bees across America to spotlight their challenges. Carrboro was declared a Bee City USA in 2014.
▪ Name: Coffee Bean Fields
Artist: Michael Brown
Location: 101 S. Greensboro St.
Date completed: 2013
More information: The lush coffee farm scene on the Roberson Street side of Open Eye Cafe was commissioned by Carrboro Coffee Roasters. On the shop’s patio is another mural by artist Shannon O’Connor.
▪ Name: Pets
Artist: Saddie Rapp
Location: 304 W. Weaver St.
Date completed: 2010
More information: Rapp was 14 when she painted the mural of dogs and cats, asking the public to “adopt” them so she could raise $1,700 to help restore the “Sea Turtles” mural. Michael Brown added a small turtle to Rapp’s mural.
Hillsborough murals to visit
▪ Name: Hillsborough
Artist: Richard Nickel and Chris Revels
Location: 109 E. King St. (The News of Orange building)
Date completed: 2021
More information: The weekend project added cardinals, dogwood blossoms and the word “Hillsborough” in large letters made of sunshine and rolling, green hills. It was painted onto the side of The News of Orange building downtown with help from passers-by.
▪ Name: Take the ‘A’ Train
Artist: Max Dowdle
Location: 226 S. Churton St.
Date completed: 2020
More information: Hillsborough’s first mural was commissioned by Volume, a downtown record store and bar. It honors jazz musician Billy Strayhorn, who spent time as a child visiting his grandmother, who lived nearby.
This story was originally published December 27, 2021 at 10:04 AM.
