Colorful mural in hiding — for now

WADESBORO — Driving into Wadesboro from US 74, visitors could see a beautiful, colorful mural on the side of a brick building on Rutherford Street, welcoming you to the town.

Now that eye-catching mural is hiding inside the Anson County Arts Council building as it waits for the ACAC staff to find a permanent home for the art instillation.

Visitors and community members now enter the town and are welcomed by a brick building on the corner with long wooden slats still on the side of the building, evidence that the mural once stood high. Below you see high fences and barbed wire put up by the Anson Regional Medical Service (ARMS).

Back in September, ARMS began fencing off the parking lot on the corner of Rutherford Street and Martin Street to house the provider’s new medical vans, bringing up concern within the town.

Residents and business owners expressed concern about this because of the loss of parking spaces. ARMS Chief Executive Officer Gwendolyn Reed defended this decision because the parking lot was always owned to ARMS. The parking lot sports “No Trespassing” and “Private Property” signs, but visitors and customers continued to park.

On Nov. 21, the last of the Wadesboro mural was taken down, leaving the brick building bare. The mural organizers did not picture the completed project meshing well with the fences and barbered wire. Once finished, the mural will read “Wadesboro NC Welcomes You.”

“It was our decision to remove it, we were not told we had to take it down,” mural organizer Elizabeth Schafer Oliver said. “I did hear some misinformation that people said we ‘had to’ move it, but that was not the case.”

The Wadesboro Barn Quilt Community Mural Project, a group from the Arts Council, has been in imagining this dream of a -mural for the town for years. The completed project would be a 20-foot by 40-foot mural, for a total of 800 square feet, with about 180 custom designed individual boards, varying in sizes. Upon completion, this will be the largest community mural of this type in the country, according to Schafer Oliver.

The different boards highlighted local businesses like Peaches & Cream, the Anson County Chamber of Commerce and Pee Dee Electric. Even a few high school students created their own painting to be hoisted up on the building.

“We stopped doing workshops when COVID hit,” Schafer Oliver said. “There were an additional 34 boards that didn’t get hung up.”

For now, the mural will be hosted at the Arts Council building, but the mural organizer Elizabeth Schafer Oliver is hopeful the town will see the colorful piece again.

“There are several other locations that could be utilized,” Schafer said. “We just need to secure the location and it will happen. If I have learned anything in my years, it’s that sometimes you need to adjust your plan.”