Mural was a community project
Trending
ELKINS -- A blank brick wall in downtown Elkins has been enlivened by a colorful mural designed and arranged by a group of local artists.
The historic Dann Building, located on the corner of Third Street and Davis Avenue, was recently spruced up when independent artist Nevada Tribble took the lead on a beautification project.
Backed by funding from the Tamarack Foundation for the Arts and its RIPPLE program, along with financial support from the Benedum Foundation, Tribble and several other local artists started putting a plan in place for the wall early last summer.
The RIPPLE program, an artist-led community and economic development program, is designed to help develop public art and support working artists at the local level by connecting artists with other businesses.
"The Tamarack Foundation has a grant program that they have been bringing to different communities around the state," Tribble told The Inter-Mountain. "They give these really nice grants to the community and have workshops with local artists and people who are interested in art. At the workshops they have the community come up with projects and the mural was one of our projects for the RIPPLE program."
Participating RIPPLE communities receive TFA coaching, technical assistance, and $10,000 in mini-grant funds to design and implement two projects that pay local artists for services and bridge the gap between business and arts.
Tribble said a plan was devised at one of the RIPPLE workshops to set up a booth at the Elkins Farmer's Market and distribute small triangles for the community to paint. The idea was for the triangles to form a piece of artwork that would hang on the outside wall of the Dann Building.
"We let everyone create their own little art work on the triangles, and then we put it together in quilt shape," Tribble said. "It's inspired by the tradition of Friendship Quilts, which back in the 1800s was a really popular thing to do, where all of your friends would make one quilt square and sew it all together. The idea was that everyone who is a friend of Elkins could come make their own little piece of art to contribute to the piece."
Tribble said the booth at the Farmer's Market was set up on six different Saturdays. She added the community's contribution to the piece was overwhelming.
"We had all kinds of different people coming through the Farmer's Market," she said. "We also had a few other events around the community where people could come and paint triangles. We did some at Mycelium, which is the art store downtown, and then we had some of the Old Brick Playhouse apprentices paint some. We had a ton of people participate."
Tribble said she envisioned the original concept for the mural, and Emily Prentice, Aira Burkhart and Tim Huguenin were part of the RIPPLE team in Elkins that helped her execute it.
"We all came up with the design and arrangement of the squares and put it all together," she said. "The triangles are on aluminum composite board, which is what they make road signs out of. We chose that because it's a really durable material and we want it to last a long time and not fall apart in a couple years. And we used this really intense double-sided tape to put it together. It's the kind of tape they put cars together with -- it's super strong."
The process of putting the mural together and lining up all the patterns was a fun and lengthy process, Tribble said.
"We got all the pieces out and saw which ones looked nice next to each other," she said. "When looking at it, if you step back you can see some quilt square patterns in the piece. It has stars and flying geese and stuff like that."
A coat of varnish was applied to the painted triangles -- which are made from the same aluminum material as the board -- to weatherproof the piece.
"I've gotten some really great feedback from the community about the piece," Tribble said. "A lot of people have come up to me and commented about enjoying it and liking the bright color on the street."