WC Project for the Arts adds wall mural trifecta to Downtown Front Royal

First, it was the East Main Street shopping and dining options banners and downtown walking mall “this way” signs with the promise of more art to come in the way of wall-side building murals marked by the mid-October completion of the sky and clouds come to earth at Cloud Street’s intersection with East Main.

It began in the clouds on Cloud St., above, and is now continuing at three locations on E. Main St. Below is one of those three on Kidd Lane with artist Kate Fristoe, left, and WC Project for the Arts member artist Melissa Ichiuji. Royal Examiner Photos by Roger Bianchini

On Friday, December 11 we were alerted by Warren County Project for the Arts (WCPA) member artist Melissa Ichiuji of three more Historic Downtown Front Royal murals underway. They are located at Kidd Lane, Foster’s Alley, and Blue Ridge Avenue’s intersections with East Main.

Involved artists are Kate Fristoe, at Robert McDougall’s building at Kidd Lane; Philippe Willis at the Rockledge Development building at 200 East Main at Foster’s Alley a little further east down Main toward Chester Street; and Christy Baker at Virginia Build Works at 591 East Main at its intersection with Blue Ridge Avenue across from the Main Street Mill.

Kate Fristoe aloft on Kidd Ln. at work on her impressionistic, well it made an impression on this reporter, portrayal of the mountains and river at the heart of Warren County’s tourism industry.

Fristoe’s theme is the rivers and mountains that are a front-page on Warren County’s attraction to nature-loving tourists, presented in a “graphic, color-blocked lyrical abstraction” style.

Willis’s work continues that theme in a Naturalist’s perspective of “Appalachian flora and fauna”, present and past, from a “scenic, reductive, animated, block-print” format and Baker takes on a “super-sized illustrative, animative graphic representation” of native birds and the native trees they live and ‘work’ in.

Philippe Willis stops to share some background on his mural and his emersion in the natural environment and history of the Shenandoah Valley as an art subject.

The above with a nod to my Warren County Project for the Arts sources. Speaking of which, we asked Ichiuji whose Cloud Street mural on the side of her art studio set the Project for the Arts downtown murals underway, about chapter two as winter approaches.

That is a rather imposing ‘canvass’ that artist Christy Baker is tangling with at E. Main and Blue Ridge Ave.

“We have three ambitious murals happening simultaneously right now. They are part of a larger public art initiative by the Warren County Project for the Arts, which is an advisory committee to the Front Royal Board of Architectural Review (BAR). And our mission is to curate public art in Front Royal as a way to bring awareness to art, to lift the spirit of the community, to enhance the experience of tourists and visitors that come; and ultimately to boost tourism,” Ichiuji replied.

Of the project’s impetus and process of matching structures with artists, she further explained, “All WCPA mural designs, including Cloud Street, went through a review process and were approved by the town council – with the subject that is a positive reflection of the natural elements and/or culture of Front Royal, Warren County, and the Shenandoah Valley. Examples include, but are not limited to, skies, mountains, rivers, flora, and fauna.

The valley’s flora and fauna even made it into Warren County Project for the Arts banners advertising dining and shopping options downtown during this year’s walking mall experiment.

“The three current murals listed above, not Cloud Street, were paid for by a CDBG grant. The Town of Front Royal issued a public RFQ (request for qualification) in the form of a ‘Call to Artist.’ The submissions were ranked based on several criteria, voted on by WCPA committee members via blind, independent, evaluations and the top artists were selected and invited to create murals.
“Buildings in the historic district were identified early in the process, selected artists were matched with walls, and WCPA worked with the artists to finalize the designs based on themes related to the area and the natural assets of the Shenandoah Valley.”

Two of the artists were aloft on the lift apparatuses that allow them to reach the top portions of their rather expansive “canvasses” when the Royal Examiner camera arrived to archive their work.

However, Willis was down to earth at Foster’s Alley working on the detail of winged wildlife with a very small brush with which to capture that detail. He joked that it might take him a little longer to finish working with such a small brush on such a big “canvass” – wait, you were joking, right Philippe?

No, he assured us, continuing to paint behind a steadfast artist’s poker face.

That’s a mighty small brush artist Philippe Willis is detailing some bird wing feathers with. – Wait, what, Philippe, you’re going to paint the whole wall with that brush?!?

Willis paused to trace the roots of his interest in nature as an artistic subject to a stint in the city, the biggest U.S. city, in fact, New York City. When he left the city he retreated to a more natural environment, residing in a cabin in Linden. Out of the city, he began doing illustrations for non-profits on natural environment topics.

“I started to a lot of illustrative work for these non-profits and that kind of sucked me into the whole world of foraging, medicinal plants; and I went on my own path for hunting, and I do a little bit of trapping for fur bearers and just learning everything about nature.

“So, these walls are supposed to encompass a bunch of different, not only our plants and animals and our landscapes, but also kinds of lifestyles. Not quite outdoor lifestyles, but kind of old-timey ways. So, there’s going to be a cabin scene that will be drying herbs with herbalists in the window.

“Up here we’ve got the river scene, it’s got – canoeing is huge, camping is huge in the Shenandoah – and then I put all of our animals. Every morning when I go down to the Shenandoah (River), I keep seeing big blue herons, I keep seeing bears all the time, you’ve got river otters. And there’ll be a forest scene over there. And the forest scene is going to have an old-timer with a backpack, and he’s going to have a beaver trap and there’ll be a beaver tail sticking out of his Adirondack pack made of whicker. And he’s going to have a hunting dog that’s treeing a squirrel. And then up in the tree, there’s going to be a great horned owl and a flying squirrel. And at the very end, there’s going to be a caver – the caving is huge here. Virginia supposedly has thousands of limestone caves,” Willis said acknowledging a local “grottoes” or caving club as he described the long, three-segmented wall canvass he is working with.

The rear section of Willis’s work reflects not only indigenous flora and fauna, but their past presence, as well as attractions below, as well as above, ground in the Shenandoah Valley.

Back in town and off Willis’s sprawling historical testament to this portion of the Shenandoah Valley’s nature and history, Ichiuji gave a nod to downtown and other businesses that have contributed free and discount food and drinks to the Project for the Arts artists as they work on this downtown beautification project. Those businesses are Royal Spice Indian and Nepalese Cuisine, Happy Creek Coffee, Vinova Tapas & Wine Bar, C&C Frozen Treats, Down Home Comfort Bakery, Manor Line Market, Front Royal Brewing Company, and Marriott TownePlace Suites.

Royal Spice, among other downtown and area restaurants, are helping keep WCPA artists hydrated and well-fueled during their hours on the job giving Front Royal a distinctive and art-fueled look.

Ichiuji also pointed to two additional mural projects pointed for early spring, hopefully, March, for which the WCPA is currently seeking funding. If any businesses or individuals are interested in sponsoring a mural please contact wcprojectforthearts@gmail.com

So, here’s a nod of appreciation for when the community and its governmental apparatus get on the same page and work for the betterment of all in this community, as well as the environmental, economic, and physical landscape at the root of what makes Front Royal and Warren County what it is at its heart.

Maybe this Warren County Project for the Arts initiative can carry over so the same sort of cooperative citizen-governmental interaction can become apparent from Happy Creek at one end of East Main Street to the Afton Inn at the other.

Hey, if you don’t have good dreams you’ve got nightmares, right Snowman.

Perhaps this Snowman is dreaming he won’t melt if he touches Cloud Street’s clouds in the 60-degree sunlight prevalent during Saturday’s ‘Christmas on Main’ event.