By Andy Furman
NKyTribune staff writer
The task was simple. Tell Newport’s story – and make it beautiful.
And that’s exactly what 15 Newport High School students did with their paint brushes – with the mist as a backdrop – Wednesday morning on the floodwall at 737 Dave Cowens Drive, Newport.
“It’s the first time we’re actually doing this,” Julie Ann Smith-Morrow, Newport’s Vice-Mayor told the Northern Kentucky Tribune. “We started this project several years ago; as we always wanted to tell the story of Newport’s history.”
The project was paused, the Vice-Mayor explained.
“We needed to hear more from the community before we continued. We asked, ‘What is special about Newport?’”
The mural project plans to transform the city’s floodwall into murals celebrating Newport’s people, landmarks, businesses and defining moments. The project’s content was shaped by nearly 200 responses to a community survey and is organized as a chronological timeline, with each panel depicting a different era of Newport’s history.
The project is a City of Newport initiative supported by ArtsWave.
And if you’re driving on Dave Cowens Drive – or exiting on 471 – you’ll see murals of not only Newport – but the cities of Dayton and Bellevue as well.
“Those two cities approached us and offered to pay for their panels,” Vice-Mayor Smith Morrow explained. “Each panel is $12 to $15,000, and we’ve created a fund, and raising money for it.”
The Newport panel, she said, is paid for.
Peyton Harshfield, a local artist, used a paint-by-numbers-style process. The students help paint portions of the murals while learning about the creation of public art and the history represented in the project.
“I moved here from Louisville,” Harshfield told the Tribune, “To attend NKU for painting, sculpture and design.”
She was instrumental in attracting both Dayton and Bellevue to the project.
“I do outreach,” she explained. “We asked if those communities needed a project.”
One of the aspiring young artists working was Newport High 10th grader, Milo Davis-Smith.
“My teacher picked two students from each class,” he told the Tribune. “I really wanted to do it. I’ve done art drawings since I was young. I want to be an artist – and yes, this is the biggest project I have ever done.”
Davis-Smith said he has had no real practice or art instruction, yet he has done portraits, and sketches. “I started art as a hobby,” he says, “and someday I hope to get a degree in it.”
But before he does, he’ll be filling in the numbers on the Newport flood wall.
“This project actually fell in my lap,” Josh Tunning, the City of Newport Municipal Specialist said. “We have about 18 panels, and they need to be funded.”
They need to be painted first.
