Mending a Mural – The Restoration of a Public Artwork in Uptown Roxboro

In the little city of Roxboro, at the precipice of its Historic Uptown district, Hall’s Way, a complex populated with charming shops, proudly sports a large 115 by 35 foot painted mural. The mural was created in 2006 thanks to John Hall, whose family had owned the building long before it was ever called “Hall’s Way,”Chapel-Hill-based muralist Michael Brown, and Doug Newell, then director of the Person County Arts Council, who helped John find the artist. 

The left side of the mural depicts Hyco Lake surrounded by a sylvan landscape of green rolling hills with a power plant in the foreground. The right side depicts a view of Roxboro in days gone by. Hotel Roxboro, which was once located where the Person County Tax Office is today, stands proud with its Ionic columns and classic red brick. In the middle ground is the Person County Courthouse, a Neo-Classical Revival structure with a modernist flavor à la 1930s architecture. Finally, a building with a distinctive dome, which was once a bank, lives in the foreground. The building, which has lost its crown, is now Green’s Jewelers. In the middle of the mural, a seal bearing the inscription, “The heritage of Roxboro and Person County” and an image which, like the mural, perfectly represents the rural and industrial aspects of the county, can be found. To its immediate right, two men stand atop a brick structure, the one on the right being John Hall. 

Over nearly two decades, this mural has become a fixture in Roxboro, essentially serving as a gateway into Uptown from the south, and as a testament to the county’s rich history. 

A State of Disrepair

Over time, anything exposed to the elements will wear down. Some time after it was painted, Brown returned to Roxboro to touch up the mural. Even so, this year, with significant portions of paint and brick chipping off, the artwork needed a great deal of restorative care. Claudia, Joe, and Cal Berryhill, owners of Hall’s Agri-Business and proprietors of Hall’s Way and the other buildings on its city block, care deeply about preserving the mural which had meant so much to their Uncle John. It was time to refresh the landmark, so with additional funding from Person County Tourism Development Authority, (TDA) they set out to do just that. 

With Brown having retired from mural work two years prior, the Berryhills were in need of someone capable of restoring another artist’s work on a large scale. As fate would have it, Person County’s homegrown muralist Carlee Hawkins was up for the challenge. 

Twenty-five-year-old Hawkins, who owns and operates Grayworks Design Co., has been painting the town, as it were, for over four years, tackling dozens of indoor and outdoor mural and signage projects. The self-taught artist is motivated by the idea of turning gray spaces into works of art, and by the principle that one good job leads to another. Needless to say, her reputation preceded her. 

The revival of Uptown has been of great interest to Hawkins, as she is not only Person-born and raised, but actually spent formative years being employed in one of the buildings pictured in the mural.

“I worked at Green’s Jewelers all of high school. So from age 16, I would literally just look out the front window and think of everything that [Uptown] could be,” she recalled. A young Hawkins certainly never imagined that she might be one of the movers and shakers responsible for breathing new life into the historic district. 

A Flexible Solution 

After consulting with Brown over the phone, Hawkins also received a great deal of assistance and advice from Bobby Barwick, owner and operator of City Lake Auto. The Berryhills connected Hawkins and Barwick, with the latter having done brick sealing work for Hall’s Agri-Business. Barwick is experienced in historic restoration, particularly on concrete and brick veneer, making him more than knowledgeable enough to help Hawkins determine a course of action and choose the correct type of paint for the project. The old clay brick used to construct the building absorbs a lot of moisture, swelling up and shrinking as the weather changes, which is what Barwick says caused portions of the paint to flake off over time. What was needed, in order to promote longevity, was a paint that could cope with the movement of the brick. 

“I suggested an elastomeric coating. It allows the brick to breathe,” Barwick explained.

After pressure washing and scraping the massive wall to remove any paint that was peeling off, which proved to be a grueling task, Hawkins took samples of the chipped-off paint to a hardware store to be color matched. 

In order to match Brown’s style and methods, Hawkins closely studied elements of the composition, discovering that his white clouds really had a layer of blue hiding underneath, and that adding a little brown to her newly-purchased colors helped them blend into the existing aged paint. 

An Outpouring… Or Two 

The process of touching up the wall, which Hawkins and Barwick began in May, proved to be more difficult than anticipated, not only because of the sheer amount of work, but because of continued inclement weather. 

 “It wouldn’t stop raining,” Hawkins said. As someone who prides herself on being quite efficient in her work, Hawkins was frustrated by how much the rain put her off schedule, but she rolled with the punches, even when it meant late nights and early mornings. 

 “I think we lost a whole week, because it was raining so much, and then there was another week when [Carlee] was actually painting in between showers… She’s tough, no doubt about it,” Joe Berryhill said. 

When Hawkins was able to paint, folks passing by were apt to show their appreciation for her work, demonstrating a deep sense of community. “People honked at me, people stopped. I loved that they would come and chat, and I would just keep on painting. I love that I was in the heart of town. I had someone bring me a lemonade, and Incorrigible Cafe gave me a burrito. People would take care of me, ask if I needed water. I love people,” Hawkins expressed. 

A Job Well Done 

In order to fully restore the mural, Hawkins had to repaint much more of the wall than anyone initially anticipated. “I would say my brush touched 80 percent of it,” she said. 

All together, the project took a month, with her finishing up in the first few days of June. While staying true to the piece’s original appearance was paramount, Hawkins did include a few extra  finishing touches to the mural. The Person County TDA logo was added in miniature under the seal, and Hawkins signed her name and added her social media handle alongside Brown’s signature, and another very small, yet very special change was made to the main composition. In one of the trees on the right side of the mural, Hawkins painted in a cardinal. Claudia requested this addition in memory of her grandmother, Addie Jones Hall, who was fond of the cheerful red birds. 

The consensus is that Hawkins, using her skills as a muralist, turned back the hands of time. 

“It looks new,” Claudia said, “It does not look like it’s been patched. I mean, you walk up to it, start really looking at it, and [it’s as if Carlee] just blended everything in.” 

Thanks to the use and careful application of the elastomeric paint, the mural should not need any more touch ups for another 10 to 20 years if conditions are favorable, ensuring a future for the public art piece. 

“Bit by bit in Uptown Roxboro, you see things happening, and I just feel like we’ve been blessed, and this is one way we can give back,” Claudia expressed. 

www.grayworksdesign.co