CHARLESTON, W.Va. — A large 17’x67′ mural put together with the faces of over 1,300 individual self-portraits representing an iconic U.S civil rights activist is finally complete and the Charleston community came together to see the end result.
Mayor Amy Shuler Goodwin among other community leaders joined the City’s Office of Public Art and the Parks and Recreation Department to officially dedicate the MLK Mural project at the Martin Luther King Jr. Community Center Monday afternoon.
“It’s an amazing accomplishment, not only for us as a city but for a community, to have this many people involved in a project that they can drive by for years to come and see their self-portraits, see their involvement as their kids grow up,” Director of the Office of Public Art, Jeff Pierson told MetroNews.
The three-year-long community-wide art project is in honor of the 60th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King’s ‘I have a Dream’ speech which he made at the March on Washington on August 28, 1963.
The 1,325 self-portraits making up the mural have been hand-painted by members of the community and beyond in individual panels, which the Office of Public Arts members then started putting together on the wall outside the community center at the beginning of
August.
Pierson said the panels are on a material known as polytab that allowed contributors of the mural to paint their self-portraits from anywhere and hook them all back together.
“We made it as a giant paint-by-number back three years ago and we had it on back tables and we’d give members of the community a number to go paint all of the colors that number,” he said.
The art office began working on the project in early 2020 right before it got interrupted by the grips of Covid-19, holding back its progress for a three year stint of time.
The original plan was to have the project complete by August 28, 2020 for the MLK speech’s 57th anniversary.
Pierson said he’s glad to finally see the project come to fruition.
“We didn’t realize there was going to be a pandemic, but we did start this three years ago with the intention of having a community mural that was made by the community, so we had this concept of having heads, self-portraits in the background, and so it took that long to get that many heads,” said Pierson.
Along with the faces of individual community members on the wall, he said people will also be able to spot some hidden famous people within the mural, as well.