Colorful Mural Soon to Grace the Side of Sneed’s Ace Hardware in Oxford

By Alyssa Schnugg
News Editor
alyssa.schnugg@hottytoddy.com

A rendering of the mural being painted onto the west wall of Sneed’s Ace Hardware this week.
Rendering provided by the city of Oxford

For more than 30 years Sneed’s Ace Hardware has provided the means to help homeowners improve, upgrade and beautify their homes.

Now, it’s Sneed’s Ace Hardware’s turn.

On Wednesday, artists from New Orleans will begin the process of painting Oxford’s largest outdoor mural on the 140-foot west side of Sneed’s building that faces 14^th Street. David Shaw, the owner of Sneed’s, said he and his wife, Susan, started discussing having a mural painted on the wall for more than six months when local artist Earl Dismuke brought up the idea to the Shaws as well.

“We all agreed it was a good idea,” David Shaw told Hottytoddy.com Monday. “We’d been looking at this big blank wall after painting it recently and we wanted to put something on it.”

Dismuke, project manager and art consultant, contacted several artists and presented their plans to the Shaws.

“We had some design perimeters that Earl explained to them. We didn’t want just another picture of the Courthouse or Lyceum. We wanted it to be colorful and something different,” Shaw said.

The Shaws selected New Orleans artists Wendell J. Brunious and JoLean B. Laborde, known professionally as “Wendo & JoLean.” The visual artists both hold Bachelor of Fine Arts degrees from the University of New Orleans and have been painting murals sine 2015. Their work has been shown in Lousiana, Texas, Mississippi, New York, Austria, Honduras, South Korea, the Philippines and Mexico.

The design for the mural is a bright, colorful abstract composition.

Brunious and Laborde will be arriving in Oxford on Wednesday and will be projecting a rendering of the mural onto the wall to begin sketching it out in the evening.

“Painting should begin early Thursday morning, weather permitting,” Shaw said. “I’m really interested in seeing the process on Wednesday evening of how they get it onto the wall.”

The Shaws gained approval from the Oxford Planning Commission to paint the mural and close a portion of 14^th Street to give the artists enough room.

“The Mayor and the city’s Planning Department appreciate the initiative and cooperation of the Shaw family and Earl Dismuke and look forward to the completion of Oxford’s first outdoor public mural,” a statement from the Mayor’s Office read Monday morning.

The public is invited to stop by and meet the artists during the process.