Livingston County hopes to draw people with huge public art effort featuring 9 murals
Like your vegetables large, really large, maybe 30 feet high? You better head south of Rochester to Lima in Livingston County.
And maybe you’d prefer a strawberry or raspberry that would take a summer to eat, a celery stalk that could pass for a tree. Lima’s your place, as well.
These vivid vegetables and fruits and others, too, make up a magnificent mural just painted by Abigail Lee Penfold on the wall of JonnyB’s Custom BBQ on Rochester Street in downtown Lima.
Her creation is one of nine murals spread across nine villages in Livingston County as part of the LivCoWalls Mural Festival, an extraordinary effort on behalf of public art.
Penfold designed her mural, which is titled The Farmers’ Spectrum, as a way of honoring Lima’s deep connection to agriculture.
“And I’ve always liked fruits and vegetables,” says Penfold. “They’re colorful and bright. And (in a mural) I could take what we see on a small scale and make it huge.”
Tim Parsley, an artist from Indiana, has focused his large mural in Caledonia on fish. Giant brown trout are there to recognize Seth Green, who established the first fish hatchery in the United States in Caledonia in 1864.
The murals in Lima and Caledonia, as well as one in Avon, wil be dedicated with appropriate celebration July 9.
Murals in Livonia, Leicester and Geneseo will be dedicated July 16. The following Saturday, July 23, will see the dedication of murals in Mount Morris, Nunda and Dansville.
The muralists, who were selected through a competitive process, come from around the country and beyond and have been joined by volunteer apprentices from the area.
Louise Wadsworth, downtown coordinator at Livingston County Economic Development, has been a driving force for the project, which is funded through a grant from the Livingston County Industrial Development Agency. It’s thought to be the first county-wide mural festival in New York State.
“The logistics of this have been unbelievable,” Wadsworth says. Residents in each village were asked to make suggestions about the murals and to help in the selection of artists. Walls had to be prepared; paint had to be purchased; housing for the artists had to be secured.
The aim of the murals is not to give a historical panorama of well-known citizens or familiar buildings, Wadsworth says. The hope is to surprise, to give residents and visitors a fresh perspective on the villages that display the murals.
“We want to evoke a feeling or a story,” Wadsworth says. “We want to take things to a different level.”
For sure, the artists have been taking things to a different level, using lifts to get to the higher places. “You’re a construction worker,” Penfold says.
“And there’s a lot of interaction with the public,” she adds. “It really is public art.”
The support from the public has been rewarding, Penfold says. People stop by, make comments. One person has been taking a picture a day to monitor the process.
If Lima has been getting to know Penfold and her art, Penfold has been getting to know Lima, a village on the upswing. She has stayed at the historic American Hotel and become a regular at the new Milk & Honey Café and the Village Lane Bake Shop.
Wadsworth would like other people to do what Penfold did. “We hope people come for the murals but do other things as well,” she says.
There certainly will be other things to do on the three Saturdays on which the murals are dedicated. Food and music will be featured in each of the villages.
For a schedule of events and for biographies of the muralists, go to livcowalls.com or to #livcowalls on Instagram.
From his home in Geneseo, Livingston County, retired senior editor Jim Memmott, writes Remarkable Rochester, who we were, who we are. He can be reached at jmemmott@gannett.com or write Box 274, Geneseo, NY 14454
This article originally appeared on Rochester Democrat and Chronicle: LivCoWalls Mural Festival puts art onto buildings in Lima, Caledonia
