08/02/2025
Let's chat about the fate of the Kernersville Mural Project and public art in Kernersville:
This upcoming Tuesday, August 5 at 6:30 pm, the Board of Aldermen should be giving me and the community their final answer on whether or not they will be allowing business level sponsor attribution on the murals. If they rule in favor and IF the businesses that were once involved want to remain involved in sponsorship, we MIGHT have three more funded murals for Phase two (out of eleven). This event was always meant to be a community-led event. It is not looking like we will have the community involvement to make phase two a success should the Aldermen decide against business level sponsor attribution. Should we not receive the support needed to fully fund at least one other mural, all donations toward phase 2 will be returned.
Honestly, I'm pretty bummed that the nature of a "festival" focused on benefitting the community that I call my own was ultimately squashed by narrow-mindedness. Whenever you evaluate the question, "Why doesn't Kernersville have... (More public art, nicer restaurants, more locally owned places to eat, a bookstore, etc)" please keep in mind that there are community members working very hard to bring these things to Kernersville, and they deserve our support.
The future of public art is hearsay at this point. Word on the street is the administration for our town IS interested in either a mural or public art committee. Should this be tied into the decision making about the Kernersville Mural Festival, it will likely delay progress as it seems like the new Planning Board would want/need to be involved in some way. Another downside of that could possibly be the hindrance of creativity in our town (as neither I nor any local artist that I know of have been consulted about this supposed decision), but that remains to be seen. The upside is that hopefully public art in our community will begin to be funded yearly. Again, we'll see what the powers that be decide.
All of that being said, the town of Kernersville will host local elections this November. There's always plenty of chatter on Facebook about community decisions. Let's start paying attention.
