MOUNT VERNON — The Masonic Mural officially joined the family of Mount Vernon building art Thursday afternoon.
The Knox County Landmarks Foundation held a dedication ceremony in the Mount Vernon Grand Hotel. The ceremony brought in members of the foundation, representatives from the groups that helped to fund the mural, city and county officials, and the Farmer family, who owns the old Masonic building on the square.
“We just want to bring people downtown,” said Carrie Hyman, executive director of Main Street Mount Vernon and a member of the mural committee. “The commerce of downtown and the camaraderie of our community, and just bringing people downtown to feel that. I feel like that’s where communities are going now. They’re going back to . . . walking to places, having community relationships.
“It’s just nice to bring life to these historic buildings in our community,” Hyman added.
The town’s newest mural plays up the history of the former Masonic building. According to the artist, John Donnelly, the scene draws on the different groups that have called the building home, from the Masonic lodge to a men’s social club and more.
Donnelly, an art professor at Mount Vernon Nazarene University, spent the entire summer working on the roughly 3,000-square-foot space.
“It was a big mix,” Donnelly acknowledged of the ideas being tossed his way. “The challenge was how do you take this big mix and put it into something that would make sense. That’s when I came up with the idea to make a cut-away of the building and then have these different characters inside it.”
Donnelly also incorporated the bricked-in windows to the right of the mural, transforming them from ugly spots along the building’s wall into a part of the scene. Those spots that once marred the edifice now blend seamlessly into the building and mural with depictions of people moving throughout the structure.
“It was fun doing this one because it was a little more public,” said Donnelly, who also painted the mural on the MTV Arts building on East Ohio Avenue last year.
People staying at or visiting the hotel would see the progress and would often bring cups of coffee to Donnelly. The Saturday farmers market brought just as many interested spectators to see the muralist at work.
Jennifer and Mike Farmer, who own the old Masonic building, were pleased to see the finished product.
“We thought it was a really interesting proposal,” Jennifer Farmer said when they were first approached by the Landmarks Foundation for a mural on their building. “I really like it. I think it has a lot of neat things in it. I really like the way the history was brought into the mural. I think we’re blessed here in this area to have such a generous and active community.”
“This is the fourth mural that we have done,” said Jeff Gottke, president of the Knox County Landmarks Foundation. “We are very pleased that it could be in such a prominent place. We had wonderful partners that could help us with this. Nazarene University, Jen Farmer and her family, and the Ariel Foundation that could help us bring the latest, hopefully not the last, mural in Mount Vernon and present it as a gift to the community.”
“It’s just a real pleasure (to see),” said mural committee co-chair George Barcus. “This is a lot of work by a lot of folks. The artist does, in my opinion, 10 percent of the work. The 90 percent is getting the folks to agree, orchestrate, the parking.”
The Masonic Mural was funded by the Ariel Foundation, Oak and Stone (Oak-Stone Renovators Inc.), Jen Farmer, and other Knox County Landmarks Foundation supporters.
More information about the Knox County Landmarks Foundation can be found at www.knoxlandmarks.org.
