9/19/20: Raleigh's Marvelous Murals!

My last post covered the mostly cultural attractions in the North Carolina state capital of Raleigh that Steven and I visited last September. As we drove around, we couldn't help but admire the city's many murals which led us to search out even more in between visits to the statehouse, parks, etc. This was the first one we came upon - I was delighted to see it and the others as I had recently become an aficionado of murals. I hope you will also like this reprieve from my 'normal' posts!

In case you're not an American reading this post, the Welcome to Raleigh, Y'all mural might provide the necessary clue that we were in the US South! I suggest you click on the photo to make it bigger so you can see the sign was expressed in 17 different languages. A campaign started by nonprofit group Come Out & Show Them, the mural on the edge of downtown Raleigh promoted "inclusion, equality, tolerance, and more."

As part of the 2019 Grammy Award push, the mural honored the late American country and folk music legend and songwriter John Prine who wrote the song Summer's End. It included the words "Come on home, you don't have to be alone."

While looking for the Honest Abe mural, I spotted the 'E' which was created by the Alphabet Project.

Ever wondered what it would be like to see Abraham Lincoln cruising around behind the wheel of a Lincoln automobile?! Honest Abe, on the wall of the live music venue Lincoln Theatre, brought that exact scene to life. The Lincoln was a theatre built in 1945 originally as an entertainment venue for Black Americans. The mural was painted over five days mainly by Clark Hipolito.

Abstracted Motion showed five figures in shades of blue and purple in an array of poses when looked at with our naked eyes. However, when seeing the 40x60 mural with a smartphone app, the figures almost leaped off the wall. The work by Raleigh artist Taylor White was considered one of the world's first augmented reality (AR) murals. How brilliant was that!

Words to live by!

I think the words "too small to fail" referred to restaurants and local businesses.

I read that artist Luke Buchanan painted this mural which welcomed visitors to downtown Raleigh along a highly-trafficked thoroughfare was commissioned by chef Ashley Christensen as a way to promote equality for the LGBT community. 

This creative Oaks and Spokes mural was appropriately by a rental bike kiosk and was made possible by Oaks and Spokes, a nonprofit organization promoting the cycling community in Raleigh, who partnered with Crank Arm Brewing, a bike-themed brewery in downtown Raleigh's Warehouse District, to thank riders for doing what they do.

In Raleigh’s popular Glenwood South district was Sprinkles the Bobcat, flanked by roses. Sprinkles, as depicted by Lisa Gaither, sure had to be the coolest cat in town!

We drove next to The Cardinal, a bar also located in Glenwood South where apparently some of the best hot dogs and beers in the city are sold, to look at the Raleigh Bicycle mural. The mural was a very, very long rendering of a cyclist being chased by a lion through a warm-colored savannah, inspired by a vintage Raleigh Bicycle Company ad distributed to African colonies during the early 20th century. I loved the vibrant colors and the lion motif but the savannah looked out of place in coastal North Carolina!

If I hadn't researched the origins of this striking red, black, and white mural, I wouldn't have known by its content that it featured, among other things, the hometown hockey team, the Carolina Hurricanes.  Wall space for the Take Warning mural was donated to support the community and the team in 2019 when they made it to the 2019 NHL Eastern Conference Finals. The mural included cheering fans and the team logo and was created by Sean Kernick, perhaps the most prolific mural painter in the Raleigh area. This was my least favorite of all the murals we saw that day. What about you?

The City Market Agriculture mural was on the edge of the Downtown Farmers Market and was described as "a visual homage to the abundant agriculture of North Carolina." While we marveled at the painted produce, some of it looked right back at us - take a closer look at the faces that were cleverly disguised as fruits and vegetables. What an imaginative idea! We'd previously toured the much larger State Farmers Market so gave this one a pass.

Brooklyn artist Kevin Lyons' mural at the Trophy Brewing Company titled Morgan Street Jazz Monsters: A Tribute to the Jazz Giants of North Carolina paid homage to iconic musicians from the Tar Heel State aka NC: Nina Simone, Thelonious Monk, John Coltrane, and others. Nobody could possibly not smile at Lyons' whimsical style, could they?!

Another work of art at Trophy Brewing Company, this mural was all about pride!

I read that Guatemalan-born artist Jalel Ronin painted the John Lewis Go Vote mural in memory of the Civil Rights leader and former US Representative who had died two months before our visit. The mural, that had been commissioned by the same beer company, promoted equality for Black people and inspired people to vote in the 2020 election last fall. As you may recall, the iconic image recalled Lewis crossing the former Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, since renamed the John Lewis Bridge in his honor. A couple of summers ago, Steven and I walked across the same bridge.

The mural, Beachfront Opportunities 2050 painted by Autumn Cobeland in 2019, showed so graphically the effects of climate change and the dangers of rising sea levels by 2050 if nothing is done damned soon.

Next post: Visiting Durham and Chapel Hill, the other cities in the NC Research Triangle.

Posted on June 1st, 2021, from our home in Denver just a week before embarking on our next long road trip through the US. I had hoped, and sure thought, I'd have long finished the posts from 2020 well before now but, alas, here I am with a lot still to write. I will plod on and finish them at some point, possibly concurrently with those from the trip beginning next week.