Paducah Wall to Wall is the all-volunteer group that’s been working on this project for 26 years. They invite the community to join them as they celebrate the completion of Wall to Wall Dafford Murals, and salute the family that made it possible, on Friday, Sept. 2nd at 3 pm at the corner of Water Street and Kentucky Ave.
Enjoy music, lemonade and Kirchhoff engine cookies as you stroll the new images behind the train with Robert Dafford as guide.
The ten panels were painted by Dafford, Miguel Lasala, other muralists and art students who participated in a Dafford Master Murals Workshop at Paducah School of Art & Design this summer. They depict a rail line map from Chicago to New Orleans and Louisville to Memphis, intersecting in Paducah.
A group of railroad consultants (Jack Johnston, Bob Johnston, Allan Rhodes, Tony Reck and John Deming) researched images portrayed on the map behind the train.
Dafford muralist Miguel Lasala, from Lafayette, LA, has been in Paducah preparing the wall, designing and painting since early May. Students in the mural workshop spent hours assisting the muralists in June, and three of them returned on and off through the end of August to complete the map.
The result is a giant 200-foot map with Paducah images on each end and in the center panel showcasing some recognizable local images, including the first engine to arrive via towboat in Paducah in 1855.
“These ten panels complete Paducah Wall to Wall’s goal of three full blocks of ‘portraits from Paducah’s past’ along the downtown riverfront,” said project director Ro Morse. “We could easily fill another three blocks with significant images. However, our original agreement was to limit painting to these three blocks. We’ve always known that ongoing maintenance would be a serious consideration. Images facing the harsh afternoon sun have to be repainted after 12 to 15 years of original creation.”
The project began in 1996 and the last mural, One Hundred Years of Boy Scout Troop 1, was painted by Dafford muralist Herb Roe in 2010.
“Our group has been hopeful to paint the ten panels behind the train for a long time but finding sponsors for ‘behind’ the train seemed a stretch…until a visionary citizen directed her family to make it a reality. “
For more information about the Paducah Wall to Wall project, click the link below.
On the Net:
Paducah Wall to Wall website
