Muralist visits long-forgotten piece

Bill Davis is one of the last of a dying breed. He's a muralist with the skill to paint in big strokes and an artist with the patience to transform the dull walls of a restaurant into magical still-lifes.

He's also a draw-by-sight painter who takes mental snapshots of river or forest scenes during his time hunting. He then re-creates them in burnt orange, blue and brown.

"I love the fall. I detest green," he said of his favorite season to paint.

And today, almost 30 years after he painted a riverscape in the old J.C. Penney building in downtown Cape Girardeau, it looks as good as ever.

He and I chatted Tuesday at Dockside Furniture & Antiques on Spanish Street. I marveled at the 78-year-old's 30-by-10-foot rendering of a steamboat pulling in for a landing near Cape Rock.

The painting pulses with life. A wharf hand races to tie off the ship and steam wafts from the steam vent. You'd never know most of the details came from Davis' imagination.

"I think I only saw my first steamboat a couple of years ago," said Davis, chuckling. The work took him two weeks in 1976, and he was paid $2,500 for it. "I use a big brush so I can cover a lot of territory," he said.

Looking closely at the mural, Davis points to the pencil marks from his first dry run. His trained eye spots the faint scratches outlining a fence he elected to leave out of the final version.

Cape Rock is depicted on a mural at Dockside Furniture that Bill Davis painted in 1976. (Fred Lynch)

Davis worked as the art director of the Southeast Missourian through the mid-1970s and left to start his own business where he painted commissioned pieces and designed logos and letterheads.

Business was good then. He painted two big pieces for Dairy Queen, painted the Burfordville Bridge for Delmonico's restaurant (the painting hangs there today) and worked for the Drurys drawing montages to hang in the Burger King restaurants they opened in towns around the area.

But somewhere along the line, work started to dry up. Fast-food joints weren't as interested in connecting themselves to hometowns through artwork, and big-box retail took over for the downtown department stores. And today his and other murals are steadily going extinct, either painted over by new ownership or torn down along with the building."They just disappear one by one over the years," he said.

Bill Davis stood next to the mural at Dockside Furniture that he painted in 1976. (Fred Lynch)

Five years ago when Chris Strode bought the Dockside/J.C. Penney building, Davis' mural was covered by shelving. Strode is now looking to sell the building and worries the next owner "won't think twice" about tearing the mural down.

But disappearing murals aren't Davis' only concern. Over the last 2 1/2 years he endured the removal of a cancerous lesion from his face, which forced doctors to remove most of his nose. He recently had surgery where grafted skin from his forehead was used to reconstruct his nose.

It's been difficult, he said. But through it all and with the constant help and support of his wife, Gloria, he keeps painting. Most recently he painted a farm scene on the wall of his bathroom. "He paints, but only when I press him hard enough," joked Gloria.

TJ Greaney is a staff reporter for the Southeast Missourian.