Featured: Historic Musical Mural Art
"Song of the Mountains"
Marion, VA

    Featured Mural - Song of the Mountains
Marion's Musical Heritage Mural, featuring tunesmiths and landmarks from the home of "The Official Television Series of Virginia, Song of the Mountains", a monthly televised bluegrass and Americana music live from the historic Lincoln Theatre in downtown Marion.
Location: 101 N. Main St
Artist: Tim White

    Mural Mention#1 "Giant Welcome to Marion" postcard, featuring a stylized postcard mural with local scenes. The post card mural was designed by Suzanne Sukle based on ideas presented by the owner of the building and the enlarged pattern printed out by her. Holly Thomas primed and painted the mural onto the panels from Suzanne's pattern.
Location: 232 East Main
Designed by: Suzanne Sukle
Artist: Holly Thomas

    Mural Mention#2 The "Patchwork of Marion", our first mural and features stories of our community's history woven into a quilt design. The quilt mural was designed by Holly but primed and painted by a community of volunteers that she organized. Many people worked on it and Holly would be the first to tell you that.

    Jim Thomas, her husband, with help from Mike Orr, devised a unique system to put the panels on the side of the building without damaging the brick. It was determined that if primed and painted directly on the brick, the mural would cause sweating on the inside and damaging the inside brick. The panels had to be put on the exterior wall leaving an airspace between the brick wall and the murals to allow the building to breathe. A photo was taken of the Herb House brick wall and enlarged to actual size. A pattern of the brick and mortar was made and each panel in the mural treated to look like brick. Each panel was then sealed and the mural painted overtop. This also allowed a safe environment for the painting volunteers as the work could be done on a flat surface and no one had to get up on the scaffolding, a real safety measure. A similar technique was used on the post card mural but without the texture. The position of filled in doors and windows on the side of the concrete block wall covered by the mural did not allow for painting directly on the wall without distorting the picture. This mural was also painted on a flat surface at the Herb House and installed by Jim Thomas on the wall. A lot of research, study, and engineering went into the Herb House mural and the lessons learned there applied to the postcard mural. This was a groundbreaking technique not done elsewhere.
Location: 107 Pendleton Street
Designed by: Holly Thomas
Artists: Community of Volunteers

    Mural Mention#3 - "The Revolution" Marion began a new chapter following The Great Recession, with a huge initiative to "Shop Local" as one strategy to rebuild the town's economy and restore community pride. Aaron Barr, a Marion native living in NYC, offered his services and one Thanksgiving weekend, came home to kick start "The Marion Revolution". The popular image has been used on posters, stickers and more, featuring iconic images of this SWVA town.
Location: Corner of Chestnut and Cherry Streets
Artist: Aaron Lloyd Barr

    Mural Mention#4 - "Mayan Mural" The "Mayan Mural", on the rear wall of the Lincoln Theatre, represents a series of Mayan themed glyphs from the unique interior design of this restored 1929 treasure. Artist and design was Kristin Untiedt-Barnett, following the theatre design of the original Mayan Revival scenery from Novelty Studios of New York.
Location: 117 East Main(rear alley)
Artist: Kristin Untiedt-Barnett