Happy 200th Birthday, Missouri

Passers-by take turns painting a giant mural designed by Aaron Horrell during Mayfest Friday, May 10, 2019, on the Downtown Square in Perryville.

Tyler Graef ~ Southeast Missourian

Painting for bicentennial communal mural kicks off in Perryville

Art unites people. It’s something Aaron Horrell and Barb Bailey, artists and owners of the Painted Wren Art Gallery in Cape Girardeau, are allowing Missourians to discover through the Missouri bicentennial communal mural project. They are heading the project as a commemoration of the bicentennial anniversary of Missouri’s statehood happening August 10, 2021. Their goal over the next two and a half years is for more than 26,000 Missourians to paint on the mural, which when assembled will be 12 x 30 feet. Plans are in the works to get the mural displayed in a government building in Jefferson City.

Passers-by take turns painting a giant mural designed by Aaron Horrell during Mayfest Friday, May 10, 2019, on the Downtown Square in Perryville.

TYLER GRAEF ~ tgraef@semissourian.com

To achieve this, Horrell and Bailey are driving the 4 x 6 foot panels of the mural to approximately 20 cities across the state. Each panel of the mural is broken into 1,728 individual triangles people can paint, with Horrell and Bailey available to guide the color selection and people’s hand, if needed. The name of each person who helps paint the mural will be documented on a register.

This is the eighth time Painted Wren Art Gallery has done a Paint for a Cause mural, with proceeds in the past benefiting the Safe House for Women, Cape Girardeau Police Station and Missouri Veterans Home. There is no charge to paint the bicentennial mural, although donations are accepted to help cover travel expenses. Horrell and Bailey decided to head the bicentennial mural as a way to celebrate Missouri’s statehood in a way that would make history.

Aaron Horrell, right, co-founder of Paint for a Cause, watches as a passer-by paints part of the Missouri bicentennial communal mural at the Mayfest on the Downtown Square in Perryville.

TYLER GRAEF ~ tgraef@semissourian.com

“Anybody and everybody can paint,” Bailey says. “We’re not looking for artists, we’re just looking for everyday people that want to paint for a little bit and have some fun.”

The finished mural will feature 17 state symbols, including the capitol building and Gateway Arch, as well as the bluebird, Missouri mule and channel catfish, among others. Horrell and Bailey will include people from all regions of the state in the painting of the mural, and have plans to travel to Ste. Genevieve, Jefferson City and West Plains on their itinerary.

The process in readying the mural for painting has been an in-depth one: Horrell and Bailey first chose symbols representative of Missouri to feature on the mural and then acquired photographs of those items, working with Canedy Sign & Graphic in Cape Girardeau to print and organize them on the mural. After the whole aluminum mural was created, they cut it into 15 pieces, enabling it to fit in the back of Horrell’s truck to be transported across the state.

Perryville, Missouri, became the first city to contribute to the mural at the annual Mayfest on May 11, tasked with painting the state seal. During the event, 251 people painted. TG Missouri in Perryville partnered with Perry County Heritage Tourism to bring the project to Perryville.

“It’s just a really wonderful way to encourage and inspire art in our community,” says Trish Erzfeld, Perry County Heritage Tourism director, about bringing the mural to Perryville. “We want to encourage not only old artists to go back to maybe their desire to do art in many different ways, but also to inspire our new artists in our community and to be the first to step up to the plate and say, ‘Yes, we want to bring this to our city.’ It says a lot about the people in our community and what we inspire to be a great place to live, work and play.”

Horrell, who enjoys teaching people about the state symbols featured on the mural as they paint, shares this excitement about the project. He says, “It’s something big. It’s historic. It’s unusual.”

Want to be a part of making history?

Stop by the Painted Wren Gallery at 620 Whitelaw Avenue in Cape Girardeau to help paint the bicentennial mural. Or to find out the cities and events where the mural will be present and track the mural’s progress, follow Missouri Bicentennial Paint for a Cause on Facebook, @MissouriBicentennialPaintForACause.