Triangle Park Mural Project Celebration
After a long summer of planning and painting, Just Folks and the Asheville Design Center [ADC] are proud to announce plans to host a community celebration upon completion of the Triangle Park Mural, on Saturday, May 18th, in Triangle Park at the corner of Sycamore Alley and South Market Street. The “Block Party” celebration will begin at 1pm in the afternoon, with an short formal program to begin at 4pm.
The May 18th event program will showcase the history of the Block, Asheville’s oldest African-American business district, and surrounding East-End and Southside neighborhoods. Former residents and business owners have been invited to speak, and tell stories of the past. The program will conclude at 5pm, with gospel music. The Block Party will continue until 9pm, with live entertainment, silent art auction, raffle, and dance party. Food & drink will be available for purchase from the famous Just Folks grill. At the silent auction, the public will be able to view & bid on large and small silk screened prints remaining from the mural screen-printing project.
The mural in Triangle Park has been a long time in the making. The City of Asheville approved the project in late 2010, and the project officially kicked-off in the fall of 2011, when local artist Molly Must was hired as a Vista worker at the Asheville Design Center, and embarked on partnership with Just Folks, a local community group dedicating to the preservation of African-American culture on the Block. After many months of collecting community histories, stories & photographs, the group began to formulate a design and raise funds.
Born of collective concern for the lack of visible evidence of the area’s rich history, The Triangle Park Mural Project aims to illustrate and honor the stories of black entrepreneurship and community life of the Eagle-Market & Valley Street area, from the late 1800s up until the early eighties. The mural will set the stage for further organization of other creative projects and events, including spoken-word, story-telling, music happenings & dance performances.. We aspire to create a space that fosters meaningful creative urban black & cross-cultural experiences, something we truly need more of in the city of Asheville, NC.
Triangle Park is located on South Market Street in the heart of “The Block,” Asheville’s historic black business district. Though situated just 100 feet behind the dense boutiques and storefronts of Biltmore Avenue, the park, and the Block itself, remain relatively unknown to many Asheville residents and visitors despite the area’s geographic significance. From the late 1800s until the 1980s, the Block served as the economic center of Western North Carolina’s black community, housing hundreds of black-owned businesses. Yet today the Block holds little evidence of this past vitality.
Several factors contributed to the Block’s economic decline including desegregation and suburbanization, though the most significant impact was brought by Asheville’s decades-long Urban Renewal projects that targeted and displaced many vibrant African-American communities.
The mural-making process was extensive. Molly Must designed and led the installation, and commissioned local artists Ian Wilkinson, Ernie Mapp, Twila Frazier-Jefferson, and Harper Leich, to take on lead painting roles. Additional help from Bubbles Griffin and other members of Just Folks greatly helped to move the project forward.
