New Sylvania Mural and Autumn's Blessings

New Sylvania Mural
On Maplewood near Main, next to Sylvania Heritage Museum

It's Saturday night, and there are lots of college football games on TV.   I click back and forth among them, focusing more on FSU and NC State because I can hear my sister Andy screaming "Go Noles!" from Tallahassee.

The gazebo hosts a wedding.  Can you find it
in the mural?  

I decide to break away and take a walk. The sun is setting.  The light is exquisite.  It's a simply beautiful fall night, crisp, clear, colorful, trees and bushes turning red and yellow, garnet and gold. I walk past a wedding taking place in the lovely gazebo and garden behind the Sylvania Heritage Museum. A nice surprise.  What a perfect night for an outdoor wedding. It feels nostalgic, the excitment, the idealism, young love.  I walk on, my mind filling with memories

Then I see the lovely mural.  So there it is, so close to home.  I read about it in the Sylvania Advantage, but had not seen it.  Didn't pay attention.  I walk closer and study it, admire it, take a few photos.

Murals are such a great a way to beautify cities. Toledo is graced with several, thanks to the work of Rachel Richardson of Art Corner Toledo (ART) and other downtown art activists. The urban murals are big, bright and bold, occupying lonely brick walls and the sides of old buildings in the city center. The newest is a grand representation of the Egyptian Queen Nefertiti by muralist Kenda with Yusef Lateef and David MacIntyre (see photo below). These dramatic murals inspire rebirth.

This first Sylvania mural seems just right for our town. It was designed by Dani Fuller of the River Center Foundation and painted by artist Carol Connelly Pletz, along with a big and enthusiastic team. (Sylvania Advantage, Sept. 2014)

The mural is called "The Roots of Sylvania." It includes the Lathrop House, the Harroun Barn, the bridge over the river, the House Museum gazebo, and some contemporary scenes.  It's filled with trees, symbolic of Sylvania.

I like the design, the historical themes and flowing scenes, the pastel colors, the blue lavender standing out as roots and springs.  

I walk back home under a sky turning pink and orange.  The moon is rising. We are lucky to be surrounded by such beauty, free of war and terror in our backyards, close to family and friends.  A walk in the neighborhood reminds me of that. Reminds me of our blessings.  Our new community mural embodies it.

Sylvania's first mural

Photo,Nefertiti mural, the most recent of several, Toledo Blade, Sept. 2014