Hendersonville, NC (Hendo) Audio Public Art Tour

This episode features the Jump Off Rock mural on the side of the Brooks Tavern building at 142 3rd Ave. West. The date of the original mural is unknown but is estimated to have been painted sometime in the 1920’s. In 2014, the mural was restored by local artist Knox Crowell.

Knox is a trained graphic artist and illustrator with an interest in local history. He is a former director of Henderson County Heritage Museum.

In addition to restoring this mural, Knox has painted nearly half a dozen murals over the years in the area. The main subject of the mural is Jump Off Rock, a large stone outcropping on top of Davis Mountain which rises above Hendersonville just a few miles to the west of downtown. It has long been a tourist destination because of its beautiful views of the surrounding Blue Ridge Mountains. The mural advertised the site and encouraged visitors to make the short drive to enjoy the vistas.

Knox said it was a challenge to bring the iconic wall art back to its former glory and he will tell us about how he did it and the challenges he faced.

Knox will also give us some of the history of Jump Off Rock and Laurel Park, the community where Jump Off Rock is located and where he grew up.

This episode features the “Unity in Bloom” mural located at 310 Freeman Street which is the home of the Interfaith Assistance Ministries, or IAM. IAM is a non-profit organization made up of a wide array of faith groups whose mission is to provide assistance to Henderson County residents experiencing crisis with basic needs. IAM graciously provided the space for this beautiful and colorful mural to create a warm welcome for their patrons.

The mural was painted by Rosalia Torres-Weiner, an artist, activist, and community leader from Charlotte, NC. Her art captures the themes, colors, and rich symbolism of her native home of Mexico. In 2010, Rosalia shifted the focus of her work from commercial art to art activism, after witnessing the repeated injustices and dysfunction of our immigration system. She calls herself an “Artivist” because she uses her art not just to beautify but to create social impact.

Her work is featured in the permanent collection of the Smithsonian Anacostia Museum as well as many other prestigious museums in the Southeastern U.S.

Rosalia is joined by her husband Ben Weiner who also assists her with her work. They will describe the theme and symbolism of the elements in the Unity in Bloom mural. Rosalia will talk about the inspiration for it and why she was so eager to paint at this particular location.

This episode features two lovely floral murals at the Old Lab Designs and Mercantile shop at 730 Locust Street located in the historic 7th Avenue District.

This area of Hendersonville is undergoing a tremendous revitalization. For many years the area has been dominated by industrial buildings and warehouses that were strategically positioned near the main railroad terminal and depot. During those times, it was not a destination for locals or visitors who didn’t have some business to transact there. But that has been changing rapidly over the past few years as new businesses catering to the general public have sprung up. Restaurants, bakeries, art galleries, bars, breweries, and even a distillery have opened to make the neighborhood a must-see stop on a trip to downtown Hendersonville.

In addition to the eateries and galleries, there are some very interesting retail shops new to the area. One of those stores is the Old Lab Designs and Mercantile, a beautiful and unique shop with unusual gifts for men and women alike. The owner is Janna Watson and she is realizing her vision of bringing rich texture to the streets of the town, not only in the items she sells in the store, but also the store building as well. When Janna first moved in, the building epitomized that industrial look of the area, rough and crumbling red brick walls with very little inviting character. She was determined to spruce it up and make it much more beautiful and help the area become more inviting.

So she decided to adorn both sides of the building with murals. She commissioned a talented artist from Miami, Paulina Guajardo to paint the murals. Paulina was able to finish it all very quickly over two short trips. Paulina is an up-and-coming artist originally from Mexico. Her mother is a renowned Mexican artist in her own right.

Paulina and Janna will guide us through the murals and tell us about the inspiration for them.

This episode features “The Good of the Hive” mural on the back wall of the Hands On Children’s Museum located at 318 N. Main St. The best view of the mural is from the parking lot adjacent to 3rd Ave East & King St in the rear of the building. The painting is one of over 50 such murals that have been painted by Matt Willey, a very talented artist and muralist. Matt has been on a mission for the past few years to paint 50,000 bees in murals all over the world to draw attention to these amazing pollinators and the environmental threat they are facing.

But his goal is broader than just trying to protect them. He is exploring what we can learn from the way they behave in the hive. He is sharing what he has learned from their social system and the connectedness they exhibit to one another. Making the analogy that “The bees are to the hive what we are to the planet,” Matt hopes to spread something that the bees instinctively understand—that what is good for the hive is good for each bee.

His work on these murals has garnered worldwide attention to the importance of bees and other pollinators for the earth’s ecosystem and the important lessons we can learn from them.

When Matt painted his first mural in La Belle, FL, he had no idea that it would lead to scores of requests from around the world to create similar murals. Hendersonville was one of the first cities to ask for a bee mural in their community. Kim Bailey, a local farmer and owner of Milkweed Meadow Farm, which focuses on growing pollinator-friendly plants like milkweed, found out about Matt and the FL mural while volunteering for Bee City, USA. She got in touch to ask him to come to Hville and then led the effort to raise the funds to finance the project. While Hville was one of the first to seek out Matt for a bee mural, the process would not be as easy as Kim first thought.

Matt relates that story and then all the details of the mural including the images he chose and their symbolism.

This episode features two sidewalk murals, The Hendo Bee Line and the Hendo Life Line. The Life Line mural begins at the corner of 3rd Ave East and Main Street. It follows the sidewalk east to King Street, then turns north running on the west side of King until it reaches 4th Ave. East. At that corner, it crosses over to the east side of King and continues to proceed north to 5th Ave East. Crossing to the north side of 5th Ave., it turns east again and continues one block to Grove Street. Across Grove, another sidewalk mural begins called the Bear or Mountain Crossing mural. That mural extends along 5th Ave East from Grove to N. Pine St. where another sidewalk mural is located. The HENDO sign language mural spans the sidewalk from N. Pine to Maple St. This mural spells out the nickname of Hendersonville, “Hendo” in both letters and American Sign Language. Both the Bear Crossing mural and the Hendo mural were created and painted by Diamond Cash and will be featured in another episode. Just past the Hendo mural, at the northeast corner of 5th Ave East and Maple Street, the Hendo Bee Line mural begins.

It runs north between Maple Street and the old Southern Railway tracks until it reaches the historic Hendersonville train depot in the heart of the revitalized 7th Avenue District

Elizabeth Queen, the creator of both the Bee Line and the Life Line murals, will tell us about them and guide us on the tour of them. She is an artist who is passionate about using art as a communal activity with the goal of bringing people from all walks of life to collaborate on public art projects not only to beautify the local community but to inspire community service. The Bee Line mural was commissioned first by the city of Hendersonville to fulfill a grant they received from the AARP for just such communal art projects. Hundreds of people came out to help Elizabeth paint the mural. The project was such a success that those citizens that worked on it asked when they could do another one. Because of that Elizabeth got the idea to create another mural connecting the main downtown area to the Bee Line mural and the 7th Avenue Historic District.

Elizabeth resides in Hendersonville, NC and has led several art projects in various media that accomplished this community goal. She compares her directing of those projects to “choreography” which is a lovely way to think of getting people to work together to create something beautiful.

Listen now as she tells us how the projects got started and the communal spirit that was built as they were created and completed.