Helping tell Lynchburg’s story by mural

If you can color in the lines of a coloring book, chances are you could make a mosaic mural with a little training.

“It’s very easy, and it’s so forgiving,” says Beryl Solla, a mosaic artist from Charlottesville. “As long as you stay in the lines, you’ll get the image.”

Solla is consulting on Amazement Square’s CityArts Mosaic Mural, which will, when completed, tell the story of Lynchburg.

The mural, located in the Human Services parking lot on Jefferson Street, right across from the museum, will trace the area’s history from before it was inhabited by humans up to its settlement and industrialization and, finally, to current revitalization efforts.

Right now, however, it’s smack dab in the middle of the 1820s, when “the area’s starting to prosper (as) a major place for farmers to bring their crops,” says Erin Dunn, assistant to Amazement Square’s director of education and the CityArts project manager.

“You start to see the (9th Street) bridge forming, and we have a lot of different structures.”

The first two panels depict wildlife — deer, bears, birds and a lone butterfly — and our area’s first human settlers, the Monacan Indians. And here, a river literally runs through it. The James will flow through all of the panels, tying one generation to the next.

The final mural will total 4,800 square feet, making it one of Virginia’s largest mosaics, says Dunn.

Led by museum staff, volunteers piece the mural together every summer, usually working on panels that range in size from 600 to 800 square feet.
Dunn, Solla and volunteers sketched out this latest section the weekend before any tiling began and each component is labeled by color, so volunteers always know what goes where.

“The mosaic medium is really accessibly to everybody,“ says Dunn, who recently graduated from Randolph College with an art history degree. “You don’t have to have tons of training. It’s something everybody can feel comfortable with.”

Wanting to test those words, I recently put in a morning shift with the CityArts crew, breaking the tiles into smaller pieces and then finding the perfect spot for them on the wall.

After about two and a half hours of work, I can report that Dunn and Solla were right. I’m probably one of the least artistic people in the world (seriously — even my stick figures leave something to be desired), and I could do it.

When tiling, there are two methods from which to choose: spreading the grout onto the back of each individual piece, something Dunn recommends for beginners like me, or just slathering it on a section of the wall and adhering the pieces to that.

At first, I was pretty anal about the whole thing.

It’s very similar to a puzzle, so I spent a lot of time trying to find the right shape for the right spot.

“I actually found that when I got done with this, I was a lot better at puzzles,” Dunn told me at one point.

By the end of my shift, I was much more relaxed and felt like there was a flow to what I was doing.

And I’m already making plans to go back and help out again soon. It’ll be pretty cool to one day point to the finished product and say I was a part of it.

Solla says that’s one of the reasons why she loves the mosaic medium so much.

“I’ve done pieces that are 1,000-square-feet long,” she says. “They’re forever. They don’t break. I go and visit my pieces.”

Dunn also hopes the mural will serve as a teaching tool about Hill City history.

“I think, a lot of times, students tend to get caught up in American history and world history. It’s really great that they can come here and focus on their own town.

In the meantime, though, there’s still work to be done and volunteers to be recruited.

“We want this to be a really big community-builder,” Dunn says. “What better way to come together than over Lynchburg’s history?”

Feeling creative? Want to unleash your inner mosaic artist? Contact Amazement Square at (434) 845-1888.