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New mural goes up at Actors Guild of Parkersburg

By Evan Bevins 3 min read

PARKERSBURG -- A sequel of a different kind is coming to the Actors Guild of Parkersburg.

A 1,200-square-foot mural, a companion to the one installed on the side of the Parkersburg Art Center in the fall of 2021, is being placed on the Eighth Street side of the Actors Guild building by artists working with GoodSpace Murals.

Designed by GoodSpace's Greta McLain, the mural consists of pieces painted on polytab panels.

The goal was always to have a mural on both sides of the Eighth and Market Street intersection, said Senta Goudy, dean of the Center for Civic Involvement at West Virginia University at Parkersburg. WVU-P is the convenor of the Arts Collaborative of the Mid-Ohio Valley, which organized the murals.

"There's just an amazing collection of things that happen in those buildings," Goudy said.

But in 2021, the Guild's wall needed repainting and its bricks repointed, said David Rexroad, president of the Actors Guild. They were able to accomplish that with the help of a grant and donations so the mural could be placed this year, he said.

The new mural is in the same style as its counterpart on the Art Center building, with sweeping blue lines evoking the area's rivers. Where the first one focuses on the area's past, present and future with images of a boat, buildings, the railroad bridge and children, this one is "a lot more theatrical in nature," Rexroad said.

It includes images of downtown theaters, like the Lincoln, which the Guild has occupied since the mid-70s, and the Camden.

"They flow together," Goudy said.

The GoodSpace team is working out of 810 Market St., space donated by the Wood COunty Society's Artbeat Studio

"We're just so pumped to be back," McLain said. "We've been here a week, and we have a week to go."

Members of the community were invited to help with the project by painting the base coat on the panels, McLain said. Approximately 120 people attended a painting party on Thursday, Goudy said, with more than 60 more, including Guild members, participating Saturday.

"So we can say that we helped paint the mural, which is great," Rexroad said.

The base coat is often a different color than what the final panel will include, mural assistant Gabriela Sepulveda said. It's an impressionistic technique that "adds character" and makes the mural appear different up close than it does far away, she explained.

Sepulveda demonstrated with a section she was working on at 810 Market St. featuring a butterfly community members had painted mostly purple.

"This butterfly is a monarch, so it's going to be yellow and orange, but you can see those purples" through the other colors, she said.

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