By Brian Trompeter
Colorful murals capture the attention of passersby and may lead them to linger in communities – and perhaps part with some money at local shops.
That’s the thinking behind a proposed Fairfax County pilot program that would solicit proposals for, and then pay to execute, murals in the county’s eight Commercial Revitalization Districts/Areas.
If the program is successful, it then may be expanded to other parts of the county, said Elizabeth Hagg, director of the Department of Planning and Development’s Community Revitalization Section (CRS), during a Sept. 19 presentation to the Board of Supervisors’ Economic Initiatives Committee.
“In recent years, Community Revitalization has been exploring opportunities to use place-making as a revitalization strategy to foster economic vibrancy in our commercial-revitalization districts and areas,” Hagg said. “One facet of place-making is to build on an area’s unique assets and history through public art such as murals.”
If the Board of Supervisors formally approves the initiative, CRS officials would return later to obtain funding for mural projects through the county’s Economic Opportunity Reserve Fund, Hagg said.
County officials researched best practices used by some other jurisdictions’ mural programs, held discussions with ArtsFairfax, interviewed more than 10 mural artists and spoke with mural-program coordinators in Richmond, Philadelphia and Greenville, S.C.
Officials also spoke with all the supervisors who have revitalization districts or areas in their districts and incorporated their suggestions into the pilot proposal, said Jenée Padmore, a county-government planner.
The mural initiative seeks to foster economic development, nurture communities’ distinctive qualities, create excitement about locales and celebrate local residents or establishments, CRS officials said.
“Murals, as a place-making tool, assist with shaping the physical and social character of an area,” Padmore said.
If the county moves ahead with the initiative, it would form a Site and Artist Selection Committee (SASC) composed of three standing members – the mural program’s manager, an ArtsFairfax representative and the Community Revitalization Section’s director – plus four rotating members specific to each revitalization district or area.
Those four members will include a property owner or representative, someone representing the corresponding county supervisor’s office, that district’s revitalization-program manager and a representative of a revitalization partner.
The SASC would work with community partners to produce a list of potential mural sites and themes, then identify a mural site and obtain an agreement with the property owner. The SASC would identify the mural’s theme and aesthetics, request submissions from three artists, then recommend an artist and draft mural concept for the project.
The committee and artist would engage with the public about the mural, the artist would present his or her concept and refine it based on community input, then the county would approve the mural and its funding, and the artist would install the artwork.
All murals undertaken during the pilot initiative would need to remain on the property for at least five years, with efforts made to continue the artworks’ existence if buildings change ownership. Building owners would need to report mural vandalism or damage to the program manager and artists would agree to repair the damage for at least five years. The murals also would need to display the “Paint It, Fairfax!” logo, which officials still must develop.
If murals begin to fade after their allotted time, county officials likely would attempt to have another artist design a mural at the same site, given the property owner’s acceptance of the previous artwork, Padmore said.
Approved murals would not have commercial messages. QR codes would be acceptable, but the county would charge a fee, Hagg said.
The program would pay three artists $500 each to produce draft presentations for each mural. The selected artist would receive a $6,000 fee (including materials and travel expenses) for a small project and up to $35,000 for a large one. Officials expect to spend $500 for community engagement on each project, regardless of size. Small murals would have a total cost of $8,000 and large ones $37,000, they estimated.
Officials hope the $400,000 pilot project would complete one large and one small mural in each of the county’s community-revitalization areas and that the county would be able to defray about 25 percent of that cost using grant funding.
The Richmond Highway Commercial Revitalization District is larger than the seven other such areas in the county and would receive more mural funding, Padmore said.
Public facilities in the revitalization zones would be eligible for murals, Hagg said.
Supervisors expressed support for advancing the mural pilot program and some suggested the county could do what the town of Vienna did recently and have high-school students help paint some of the projects – both as a way to save money and engage the community.
“If we’re going to do this in a bigger way, I think it’s a multiplier effect,” said Board of Supervisors Chairman Jeff McKay (D).
“We have some very talented art programs in our high schools,” he added. “I also think it helps the kids feel a little bit more vested in their community, rather than maybe hiring an artist who might not be in that general area. I think there’s more to just the art. It’s the doing of the art piece that adds value back to our young people in schools.”
Supervisor Penelope Gross (D-Mason) called the proposal “exciting stuff” and noted two private-sector murals already had been painted in Annandale without any prompting from the county.
The county’s pilot program should not discourage people in the private sector from doing their own murals, Gross said, County-generated murals could benefit from some explanatory information and when multiple projects have been completed, a walking-trail guidebooks should be produced for viewers, she said.
Supervisor Dalia Palchik (D-Providence)said the mural program’s community-engagement elements should come sooner in the process and be more extensive.
Supervisor Rodney Lusk (D-Franconia) said he was “really excited” about the program and noted that two privately executed murals in his district have had a “transformative impact.”
Before moving forward with the mural program, supervisors likely will ask county staff to study the matter further and address issues raised at the Sept. 19 committee meeting, said Supervisor John Foust (D-Dranesville).
“I love these murals,” Foust said. “I see them in a lot of towns when I’m traveling and they make you feel better about being there.”
