The ‘Rural Mural’ Program

What You’ll Learn

Flint Energies has started a matching grant program with artists and community groups to paint murals in towns around its service territory. In addition to adding beauty to the community, they’re seeing positive economic impacts.

Guest Speaker

Marian McLemore

Show Notes

Transcripts have been lightly edited for clarity and readability.

Intro: A production of Pioneer Utility Resources. StoryConnect, helping communicators discover ideas to shape their stories and connect with their customers.

Andy Johns: How can art change your community and help your PR? That’s what we’ll be talking about on this episode of StoryConnect: The Podcast. My name is Andy Johns, your host with Pioneer. And I’m joined on this episode by Marian McLemore, who is Flint Energies’ Vice President of Cooperative Communications, based down in Warner Robins, Georgia. Marian, thanks so much for joining me.

Marian McLemore: Thank you for inviting me.

Andy Johns: So I, you know full disclosure, I ran across this story in the RE magazine a couple of months back and kind of flagged it, dogeared that page and said, we got to come up with this because you’re rural mural program, which I have been practicing because I knew I’d need to say “rural mural” a few times on this episode. But your rural mural, see (laughs). Your rural mural program that you’ve got going there, it seemed to me like an outstanding example of a co-op going out into the community and, you know, kind of thinking outside the box. So tell us a little bit of the basics about the rural mural program.

Marian McLemore: Sure. It’s a economic development program for our rural communities. It is a creative placemaking program where we partner with our local rural communities by providing them a grant, a matching grant. They have to give some skin into the game to play, so to speak. But, we provide a grant of up to $10,000. The community is responsible for at least $2,500, or the remaining amount of money to secure the artist to paint the mural in their community.

Andy Johns: And you started this back in, I think, 2019. You’re an artist yourself. But where does the idea come from to do something like this?

Marian McLemore: Sure. So yes, I’m a painter on the side, my side hustle, my creative outlet. But, I was challenged by our previous CEO, Bob Ray to come up with a creative economic development effort. And he knew, that I was artistic, you know, and our department, the department I’m over, is involved with economic and community development. So it’s taking my day job with my hobby and passion for the arts and kind of marrying the two together. And so came up with the idea, thought it would be cool to have some public art in rural communities and set about in 2019 or actually earlier than that, like 2017, 2018, to do some research about other grant programs for murals or public art, and sort of came up with our own program based on that research.

Andy Johns: Yeah. And the economic development piece is something I certainly didn’t realize before. I kind of started doing some research on your program. You know, I want to get into some of the specifics, and we’re going to do our best to talk through art and paintings in an audio medium, I guess, and we’ll see what we can do there. But, before we get too much into the detail of it, I mean, talk to me a little bit about the economic development piece. Because to me, you know, like you said, I think murals are cool when I’ve seen them. You know, and it does change your perception of a place. But I mean, some of the stats, you know, about the downtown areas and the blight and all that. I mean, it’s pretty stark what it can do just to have a mural go up in a downtown.

Marian McLemore: Absolutely. I view it as that once we put a mural up, it’s like a veil has been removed from the eyes of the residents in those communities because they see, wow. Look at what, you know, some paint did on that once, you know, probably very ugly wall or plain wall. And it just sort of sparks this, you know, new outlook on their community. And they’re, you know, they’re looking like, wow, if that one wall has changed my perception of this community, you know, what else can our community, you know, rally around, and what can we do? And we have so many examples of where those murals have transformed those communities. And one simple story was in Butler, Georgia, where we have two murals. We had someone mentioned that, you know, just an average citizen used to, you know, walk by litter on the street in the downtown area. But once those murals, you know, were installed, they started picking up the trash, picking up the litter because they felt pride in their community now that, you know, there was something beautiful there, and they wanted to help with that, you know, transformed look in their community.

Andy Johns: Yeah. I mean, because I’ve heard before, you know, what is it? The broken window theory or the broken window effect, kind of where just a little sign of broken window, you know, leads to everybody thinking of places worse than it may be. So I guess this is a reverse of that, that, you know, a little beautification throwing up, you know, really stunning piece of art, does change everything from, you know, the perception of it. And then that leads to, you know, some of the areas with the vacancy rates and all that. I mean, you guys have seen. Sure, the civic pride piece picking up the trash, but it goes beyond that to, like you’re saying, truly economic development where there’s more activity in a town because it’s a pleasing, you know, pleasing place to be.

Marian McLemore: Absolutely. Our first one was in the town of Oglethorpe down in Macon County, Georgia. It’s probably one of our poorest counties in our service territory. And we put that mural up. And the downtown development director at the time, you know, started seeing changes. And they actually added on to it. They actually placed large canvas photographs in empty store windows. They did an art contest among the community to install lamp posts with like a medallion with local artists work in it. And combination of those things turn that tide from 80% blight to 20% blight in just a couple of years.

Andy Johns: That’s awesome.

Marian McLemore: Investors were coming in, buying up all the buildings, starting to renovate them, putting in new businesses, you know, retail and lofts and that sort of thing. So it, you know, that mural was a spark for that community to totally transform the economic outlook of that town.

Andy Johns: Yeah. And who better to be kind of a catalyst for something like that than the, you know, electric co-op serving the territory? That’s awesome.

Marian McLemore: And one interesting fact is most of the downtowns are murals are located in are actually in IOU territories. We serve the counties surrounding the municipalities that the murals are in. So, you know, but that’s where our members they go in to those towns to do business. And it just generates, you know, great economic growth for them after years of brain drain. You know, we’re in rural Georgia. And most of the youth have moved off to Atlanta or the, you know, Savannah, bigger cities to find employment. And this is one way that we can hopefully give a resurgence of, you know, a quality of life where those youth can move back at some point in their adulthood.

Andy Johns: Yeah, I love that. And you answered one of the questions I had, but let’s get into the nitty gritty of how it works. So you said it’s a matching grant. Usually who’s doing the matching? Not the artists themselves, but I imagine it’s like Chambers of Commerce or Downtown Development Authorities. Who’s the other side of the match?

Marian McLemore: Yes, yes. So the the funds from the co-op actually come from unclaimed or abandoned capital credits here in Georgia. After so many years that comes back to the co-op, but we have to use it for, you know, charitable organizations, economic development or education. So the economic development funds from those abandoned capital credits help fund our rural murals program. Now, the matching part from the community, yes that comes from your Downtown Development Authorities to groups of just concerned citizens or even business owners that might, you know, see the possibilities of, you know, a better quality of life in those towns. So in the town of Buena Vista in Marion County, Georgia, actually there’s business owners who have already invested a lot in the downtown square there and wanted wanted a mural. So they came to the table. They, you know, supplied the matching grant funds, and they’ve actually been great. They found another partner to the Nature Conservancy, excuse me, and were able to expand the mural bigger than we had originally planned. And they’ve actually worked with the University of Georgia. And as of Monday on Earth Day, they made it the first probably interactive or immersive mural, in that they planted native plants in front of that mural.

Andy Johns: Perfect.

Marian McLemore: That are painted in that mural, but are now there’s a patch of land in front of that mural where they planted the plants that are in the mural. So, folks, when they come by to take their photos, they can actually stand within the foliage and get a sort of a 3D effect. So that’s pretty cool.

Andy Johns: That’s very cool. Every question leads me to a few other questions. But how, you know, how much does a mural cost? Where do you pick the, you know, are you selecting the sites? Are there some spots that work great for a mural and others that aren’t? Who makes the decision on where they’re going to be and how you pick which ones? I know that’s 4 or 5 questions thrown at you.

Marian McLemore: No, that’s fine. We have an application process where the, you know, the Chamber of Commerce or the community group fills out. They have selected the location. Our requirements is that it’s, you know, highly visible, that the property taxes are up to date because we don’t want to invest money on property that might get torn down.

Andy Johns: Yeah, yeah. That’s smart.

Marian McLemore: Whatever. You know, we want to be mindful of our members’ money. So, we have them provide proof of that, you know, provide proof that the owner is okay with putting a mural there.

Andy Johns: That sounds important. That last part.

Marian McLemore: Yes. Yes, absolutely. And then, you know, they come up with the reasoning, you know, what do they want to see on the mural? Most of the murals are very indicative of the community that they are placed in, whether it be, you know, the industry that is most prominent in that community to history, to citizens that you know are, you know, famous in that area or from that area. You know, hobbies, pastimes, anything that makes a unique mural to that community. They submit the application. They usually pick the artist. If they don’t have an artist, we have sort of a stable of artists that we can choose from to help work with them based on, you know, the needs there. But they submit, you know, the application with all those documents that everything’s up to date. They have a theme, what they want the theme, you know, the mural to be about. Usually we ask them to go ahead and get an estimate if they’ve already chosen the artist so they know, and we know, how much the overall cost is going to be. You know, we provide $10,000. They have to come up with the rest. So we go through that process. They submit it by deadline. We have judges usually. Art lovers or art educators, somebody that’s, you know, in the art scene to review the applications. And then we choose the locations based on, you know, what we think is best representative of, you know, Flint service territory. We have, you know, a lot of competition. You know, we are giving out three grants this particular year. Actually, we’ll make that announcement later this month. So by the end of the month, we’ll announce three new winners. But, you know, really, it’s, you know, it’s a collaborative effort. You know, we want to make sure the money is spent well. The location is good. The artist is, you know, approved. All the things, we want this to be as seamless as possible.

Andy Johns: Yeah, yeah. And it sounds like that’s a smart way to do it. Just to describe some of these, you know, looking at the pictures the Butler, Georgia one’s got the crossroads in the middle, a train on one side kind of coming out of the building, and it looks like a side-by-side or four wheeler on the other side. You’ve got the Ellaville’s got the Mallard up top with a big magnolia blossom at the bottom. Looks like a courthouse at the top and a tractor with the Ellaville name. I like this one, the bloom where you’re planted with big sunflowers and cone flowers. And another looks like a magnolia there. So some tiger swallowtails or some of the yellow butterflies on some of the other buildings. Just really eye catching stuff. A lot of them, like you said, do tie back to the communities and the histories, which I think is a really cool connection to make.

Marian McLemore: Absolutely. And we, you know, we have turned down applications because they weren’t eye-catching enough or. There was something controversial. We try not to, you know, include anything that’s political or, you know, sensitive in nature. And so, fortunately with our the artists that work with us, they know exactly what we’re looking for. So they actually help in the discussion process. You know, I don’t remember which one, but there was a mural that somebody wanted to paint a copy of a monument that was already in the community, a Confederate memorial monument. And even though, yes, that’s very important to their community.

Andy Johns: Sure.

Marian McLemore: We felt like that might not be the best thing to include in the mural, because it’s a sensitive issue, and we did not want – you know, we want to make it public art for everyone. Not for a select few.

Andy Johns: Are you guys in all of the the counties that you serve or all the communities yet? Or do you try to kind of move it around to different ones? Do you have some folks that have really embraced it and others that are a little behind the curve?

Marian McLemore: Yes. We have a few. Well, we serve 17 counties.

Andy Johns: Yeah. I knew y’all were very spread out.

Marian McLemore: We’d like to be in all 17 at some point, but we’re really starting with the most rural, most affected communities first. And so after we award the three at the end of this month, we will have touched almost every one of those counties, and then we can move forward.

Andy Johns: That’s very cool.

Marian McLemore: We do have one community that has four, and that’s Fort Valley. It’s in Peach County. They’ve just loved the program and have seen so much increase in foot traffic that they continue to find pockets of money to continue the program. They’ve applied almost every year. Butler has two, but most all the other communities just have one. But, you know, the next round will probably, there’s a possibility another community would be adding their second one. And then there’s a couple communities that would be their very first murals. So we’re excited about that. So we have ten completed now. We hope to have 13 done by the end of the year total. And we’re going to keep continuing as long as we can get those abandoned capital credits. And then ultimately, our goal is to create a trail, a mural trail through our service territory to connect the dots and get folks off those interstates, travel the back roads, and stop at all of the murals, or most all the murals, and really increase that economic development along that trail.

Andy Johns: Yeah, that’s really smart to have a bigger master plan like that where it all fits together. Good for you. Two last questions for you. What have you learned, or what surprised you? Maybe, you know, doing the rural mural program. What has surprised you that you didn’t think of when you started it? Or if not surprised, just lessons learned along the way.

Marian McLemore: Lessons learned. Really, I forgot about the public art aspect of it that folks in our rural communities don’t have art museums and art galleries and things of that nature to go to. So this might be the first time someone in one of these rural communities has actually seen art up close and personal. And that is transformative, too, to those especially young minds. You know, these kids that are like growing up are like, wow, maybe I can grow up to be an artist or a muralist or graphic designer or whatever just by seeing these murals in their communities.

Andy Johns: Yeah.

Marian McLemore: And that’s probably been the most surprising that we’ve brought public art to the masses, the rural masses.

Andy Johns: Yeah. And for them to see how a little bit of public art like that can change the whole way that a downtown area looks or the perception of it. I mean, it’s wild how something big and splashy like that can convert the whole thing.

Marian McLemore: Yes.

Andy Johns: Last question I had for you. If there’s somebody who’s listening and they said, you know, we’ve got some unused capital credits, we could do something like this. What advice would you have for somebody who’s listening and thinking, hey, we’ve got some areas that could benefit from this. Maybe we should start something like this. What advice or tips would you give them?

Marian McLemore: I personally would say, just do it. This is our love letter, our love letters to our communities. It’s showing that we care about them and showing that, you know, these communities are already beautiful, but let’s show that beauty to the world. And if this one mural can spark some interest in these towns, then that’s what we’re going to do. And hopefully, you know, they’ll reap the benefits of it. And we’re just, you know, we love our communities and want to show that love to them. I would say do your research, and if you have any questions on how to get it started, please don’t hesitate to contact me because I love talking about this and would love to walk you through, you know, all the points of it, how we got it started. You know where we are today, anything that has come up since. You know, since we, you know, started it in 2019. And you know what you can do with it. But it’s just been a great program. We’ve seen so much growth, so much, a true renaissance in some of these towns. And it’s just the beginning.

Andy Johns: Yeah. Especially bringing in all those other partners like you’re doing along the way. I mean, that’s awesome, so. Well, thank you so much for for sharing this idea with us, and hopefully there’ll be some more rural murals to keep popping up until y’all run out of buildings.

Marian McLemore: Oh, I’d love that. Thank you so much for the opportunity to share this story.

Andy Johns: Sure. She is Marian McLemore. She’s the vice president of cooperative communications for Flint Energies in Georgia. I’m your host, Andy Johns with Pioneer. And until we talk again, keep telling your story.

Outro: StoryConnect is produced by Pioneer Utility Resources, a communications cooperative that is built to share your story. StoryConnect is engineered by Lucas Smith of Lucky Sound Studio.