Artist will not start painting mural until Sept. 1

W. TERRY SMITH

The actual painting of the military-themed mural on the south wall of the Colonial Theater will not begin until Sept. 1.

That’s the word from Chapel Hill artist Michael Brown who was in Tarboro on Wednesday to take measurements of the wall that has been prepared for his work.

Brown and the Edgecombe County Veterans Museum Board of Directors agreed on a contract and draft sketch June 9, but the starting date agreed upon then was July 1. The museum owns the old theater at 514 Main St.

“I have six weeks of other projects in other towns plus a week of family vacation," Brown said. “This is a big project and I will move all my tools here and work on it until the end of the year.”

Brown will be paid $35,000. The Town of Tarboro and the county Board of Commissioners each have contributed $10,000 to the project. The remaining $15,000 is coming from donations to the museum.

The museum is selling memorial bricks that are being placed alongside the wall that faces the Town Hall parking lot.

It will depict various times in the nation’s history. The different scenes will be 1. the Revolutionary War and War Between the States (the actual scene is modeled after the North Carolina monument at Gettysburg); 2. a dramatic dawn attack during World War I; 3. the Normandy invasion for World War II; 4. the Korea and Vietnam conflicts; and 5. the war on terrorism in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The artist will be paid $7,000 upon the completion of each panel.

Each panel will be about 22 feet wide and 30 feet tall.

Board Chairman Calvin Anderson, Susan Fecho and Billy Wooten were a committee that worked with Brown on the draft sketch and the board members have been reviewed it.

Brown, 54, has painted murals inside and outside of buildings around the state, including 20 in Chapel Hill. He’s also worked in Virginia, West Virginia, New York, Chicago and painted two sides of a 10-story hotel in Baltimore’s Inner Harbor.

He began talking with the museum’s board on Jan. 2, 2008, when Joe Bourne invited him to town.

Bourne bought the 90-year-old theater in 2005 and donated it to the museum he helped found the previous year. He has invested more than a $100,000 of his own money in a new roof and other repairs. The mural is his original idea.

Bourne and his wife Edith took Brown to lunch Wednesday.

Afterwards, Bourne, a World War II Marine, admitted he was "extremely disappointed" in the later starting date.

Bourne is providing Brown a guest cottage for his use and taking care of renting a lift for him to work from.

The mural is meant to be a tribute to Edgecombe County veterans, Anderson said.

It does not spotlight the individual services although each is shown throughout the mural.

“It’s a challenging project,” said Brown. “There is a lot of different colors, human forms, faces, hands, hands, explosions, equipment. It is extremely challenging.”