The Neosho Arts Council’s mission "is to grow appreciation, participation and support for the fine arts in our community,” said it's president Sarah Serio. “This piece [has] been so visible from our town’s historic park that it’s part of the community, it’s been part of people’s entire lives, and so, the response...has been overwhelmingly positive.”
The mural, a design by artist Lawrence Sanchez, was originally installed in 1965. It was the result of a mural design competition sponsored by the Safeway grocery store, which previously occupied the building.
Before completing the mural, Sanchez studied art at the Boston Museum School of Fine Arts and eventually relocated to Neosho as a technical illustrator for Rocketdyne, a local company that built engines for NASA.
After Sanchez’s design was chosen, his drawing was turned into a plan for the tiles, which was installed by Willis Tile Company of Joplin, MO.
Howard Willis of Willis Tile Company was quoted as saying that it took three months to produce the tiles and two weeks to install them on the side of the building.
During the original installation of the piece, the public was allowed only to see the section that was currently being worked on. The rest of the piece was covered during this process to prevent the final project from being seen before the unveiling.
On May 15, 1965, the mural was unveiled and it was reported that over 1,000 people were in attendance for the event.
The mural measures 9'x5' and contains 61,000 1-inch square ceramic tiles, together depicting the founding of Neosho through the beginning of the space age when the mural was created.
But over the years, the mural deteriorated, largely due to water damage. In 2019, the Arts Council had the piece surveyed by an art preservationist, and the restoration plan for the piece was created.
“We’ve replaced some individual tiles, so [the] majority of the mural at this point is still the original,” explained Serio. “It’s still exactly as it was originally installed.”
However, according to Serio, finding replacement tiles that matched the original 1965 colors became a challenge.
“This mural is made of a unique color palette and tile size that is not readily available at home improvement stores,” said Serio in a statement.
During the same time period, the council was in the process of creating a descriptive audio guide for the mural, which led them to research the company that manufactured the original tiles, American Orlean.
At first, the company did not have matching colors for the council, but over the course of the last year, American Orlean launched a new line of vintage colors that had most of the colors the group needed, meaning only a few of the tile colors had to be color-matched.
The process of restoring the mural began in mid-June.
Serio explained that, while the arts council itself did not physically restore the piece, they financed and oversaw the restoration process.
For more information on the mural, visit the audio description page on the Neosho Arts Council website.
To connect with the arts council, check out their Instagram and Facebook pages.