FAULKNER AT 100: DEDICATION OF MURAL HIGHLIGHTS CENTENNIAL FETE

In his preliminary research for the William Faulkner Mural, artist Dr. Grant Lund was struck by one critic's description of the writer's work as "a psychological jigsaw puzzle."

Faulkner's use of different narrators could make it difficult to understand how the pieces fit together. But, as Lund writes in his artist's statement about the mural, "From a psychological distance they make sense."

And so it is with his mural, which up close appears to be an abstraction of moody hues and chiseled shapes, but from afar conjures a striking likeness of the man.

Lund's mural will be dedicated at 4:30 p.m. today at Kent Library 309 as one of the Faulkner Centennial Celebration events. Also today, a reception will be held from 3-5 p.m. at the University Museum for the artists who participated in "The Faulkner Centennial: A Visual Arts Exhibition."

An art professor at the university, Lund gleaned much of his knowledge about the writer in discussions with Dr. Robert Hamblin, director of the Center for Faulkner Studies. "As he would tell me things I would visualize images," Lund said.

Faulkner was a man of great contrasts, a writer who wrote of degradation in the service of upholding moral verities. Some described him as sensitive and compassionate, others found him curt and ornery, Lund says.

The mural captures this duality. Hamblin has praised it as the best piece of Faulkner-inspired artwork he has seen.

Lund, who's known for his portrait skills, simply calls the mural "one of my best pieces."

He began work on the mural itself July 2 and finished July 24. It's an oil painting on a single piece of linen canvas which is glued to the wall, allowing the work to be moved if the location of the Faulkner center changes.

Southeast's Faulkner collection now consists of more than 10,000 items, including manuscripts, photos, letters and signed books. It is one of the top four collections in existence.

St. Louis poet L.D. Brodsky, who donated the Faulkner collection to Southeast and is its curator, calls Lund's mural "stunning."

Visitors to the Center for Faulkner Studies will walk up a staircase toward the mural. There, Lund's dramatically colored shapes seize the attention, but moving away down the hall the "gestalt" occurs of parts becoming a whole.

"It transcends Faulkner," Brodsky says. "It's not like looking at an enlarged photograph."

One Faulkner biographer said the writer had the saddest eyes he ever saw, and indeed those eyes became the focus of Lund's mural.

But the tragic tone found in many of Faulkner's books contrasts dramatically with his famous speech accepting the 1949 Nobel Prize for Literature. The wall next to the mural will bear an excerpt.

"I decline to accept the end of man ..." it begins, and ends, "The poet's voice need not merely be the record of man, it can be one of the props, the pillars to help him endure and prevail."

A Faulkner Centennial Celebration

-- "The Faulkner Centennial: A Visual Arts Exhibition," reception and awards ceremony for the artists, 3-5 p.m. today, University Museum.

-- Dedication of Faulkner mural by Dr. Grant Lund, 4:30 p.m. today, Kent Library 309.

-- Keynote presentation by novelist Willie Morris, author of "North Toward Home," "Terrains of the Heart," "New York Days" and "Faulkner's Mississippi," 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Glenn Auditorium, Dempster Hall.

-- "Faulkner's As I Lay Dying," a lecture by Charles A. Peek, associate professor of English at the University of Nebraska-Kearney, 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Crisp Hall Auditorium.

-- "Faulkner at 100," a lecture by Dr. Robert W. Hamblin, professor of English and director of the Center for Faulkner Studies at Southeast Missouri State University, 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 23, Crisp Hall Auditorium.