84 panels of repurposed solid-core doors
26' x 61/2' x 2"
2013
Most people are only familiar with Alma Arkansas as a landmark while driving through either on I-40 or I-49 (I-540). As a long-standing crossroads in West-Central Arkansas, many people completely bypass a rich and hospitable community.
The mural depicts a bird’s-eye view of the City of Alma. As a way to reverse Alma’s association with being a crossroads, merely a town to drive through, I used the wood panels to render just the land, creating spaces between the panels with the missing roadways.
As the final part of a new renovation of the courthouse and police station, I was able to repurpose their old solid-core doors in the creation of this project. The material lead me to realize a geographically important feature; namely that Alma rests at the foothills of the Ozarks* and acting like a doorway for two major freeways.
*A distinctive geographic region that includes northern Arkansas and southern Missouri.
Below is a detail image of the I-49 and I-40 interchange, a recognizable reference point for the interpretation of the map qualities of the mural.
The process of creating Alma: Doorway to the Ozarks began with a 24"x40" hand-drawn design.
Next I produced a number of scale studies to settle on a proportion that fit the available space. After I converted the scale drawing I determined that the wood mural that would be 26 feet by 6.5 feet tall.
I eventually used Google Earth Pro to generate a high-resolution reference image, from which to accurately render the city and surrounding area.
