The Burlington Downtown Corporation is looking for artists near and far interested in completing its second and third murals downtown by the end of this year.
“2020 threw off a lot of our original plans,” Sara Beth Hardy with the BDC said. “We received a grant from the Community Innovation Fund for $10,000 and the intent of the committee when they awarded us that grant is we would have three murals in downtown Burlington with that seed money.”
In late 2019, the first mural was completed by Chicago-based artist Mauricio Ramirez on the back of Bella’s House. Because of Ramirez’ necessary travel and other costs, that first mural used up the grant funding, so the BDC started fundraising to complete the mural series.
Since then, another $11,000 has been raised by the community and local sponsors. The BDC has issued its call for artists for the next two murals with a deadline of Jan. 18.
The next two murals will be located at Walkerdance Ballet, 263 E. Front St., and the McCauley Family Learning Center, 441 S. Spring St.
Both local artists and those from outside the area or even the state are welcome to apply, but Hardy said the selection committee will be putting some emphasis on local talent.
“It is absolutely open to any artists from anywhere,” she said. “We have put a little bit more priority this time around on local artists just because we know we have wonderful regional and local talent and would love to have someone come from North Carolina or even Alamance County. While we would love that and will be keeping that in mind, we’re still open to any artist.”
The concept of the mural is entirely up to the artist.
“We’ve not put any sort of direction or restriction. We found that, last time, we were kind of blown away with what all of the different concepts and submissions we received. Keeping it open, I think, brought out better work,” Hardy explained. “We’re hoping artists will use whatever inspiration they have right now.”
Artists will be selected in early February, Hardy said, and the BDC hopes to have both murals completed by the end of the year, if not sooner.
The murals, they hope, will drive more foot traffic to downtown Burlington and into less-frequently visited areas.
“We’ve really seen … such a wave of people coming and using [the 2019 mural] to make their own adventure, come take photos … it’s just been such a catalyst for drawing people downtown. We’re excited that this project will build on that,” Hardy said. “We want to create more destinations. That’s always a big goal in downtown.”
Hardy said the committee strategically chose the new mural locations to draw traffic into quitter areas of downtown and “activate” them.
“We’re really trying to activate different parts of downtown,” she said. “Trying to draw people down to other parts of downtown and activate them is going to be more important in the next few years and that’s always been our dream.”
