BY MELINDA J. OVERSTREET
GLASGOW NEWS 1
Another entryway to the Glasgow Public Square is targeted as the next location for a mural.
The person who purchased the cluster of buildings at the northwest corner – diagonally across from the Fine Arts Bistro and the mural there – wants the side of the Mitchell Terry Building to be painted creatively, to the point of creating a contest for those who wanted to solicit design ideas and a $500 award for the best option, which was determined to be a bookshelf with local names and elements incorporated into it.
Casey Page, known for other walls he’s livened up in Glasgow and Cave City, is the artist pegged to be making the idea become reality.
This image represents one possible rendering of a mural planned along West Main Street in Glasgow, just off the Public Square. SUBMITTED
Patrick Gaunce is the owner of those structures, and he aims to make the project into a fundraiser for Bridge Kentucky while promoting community input into the image as well.
Though he contributed the funds necessary for the work on the mural to Bridge Kentucky, Gaunce said his goal is to put the spotlight on the nonprofit organization as the sponsor of the artwork and bring awareness to the types of work it does, which range from helping families with certain kinds of bills to helping individuals have a warm place to sleep on a cold night.
The spines of the books on the shelves in the mural are to have names of local people who helped shape the community in large or small ways – for the price of a contribution to Bridge Kentucky. A few emblematic “knick-knacks” are expected to be tucked among the books on the shelves as well.
Wade Copas, director of Bridge, said he and Mallie Boston, founder and board chair for the organization, thought the mural would be a good gift for the organization to give back to the community.
Wade Copas
“What better place to look than a talented artist that I went to school with and that Mallie’s known for a long time, to do it for us. The work that he’s done here in town and in Cave City and at the Boys & Girls Club has been phenomenal, so what better person could we think of to get than Casey?” Copas said.
Page said they looked to multiple sources for inspiration.
“The mural itself … we got with a lot of students, a lot of the kids in town and I got them to give me some sketches and ideas. We got on Facebook, asked the community to kind of help join in and give us ideas. It’s for Glasgow; it’s for the hometown, so why not ask them to help out. So we did that and we got a lot of feedback. We’re going with a bookshelf design and with that design, it’s just kind of a memorial to Glasgow, it’s memories of hometown through the years,” he said.
Casey Page
“Each book that’s going to be on the shelf, we will ask for a donation from the community, either businesses or individuals who would like to make a donation. … Donate those names to the mural to be able to kind of get your name on the wall.”
Copas said, “yes, on the spine of the book. I think is what we came up with.”
Page said that with some of the books on the shelves, they want to honor authors and writers from Glasgow.
“We want to highlight those people who have kind of done great from here as well,” he said.
Details regarding suggested contribution amounts for specific sizes of books and such are still being finalized, but those who are interested in making a contribution may call the Bridge Kentucky office at 270-629-5323 or reach out via the direct message option on Facebook to the organization page or Copas’ or Boston’s pages, Copas said.
As it happened, the person whose suggestion was chosen was James Brown, digital director for Commonwealth Broadcasting Corp., which shares the Commerce Plaza building with Gaunce Management and is the home of Glasgow News 1.
Brown said he responded to a call for ideas that Page posted, suggesting a bookshelf, and they exchanged some examples.
“I was not aware there was any kind of award associated with it,” Brown said, so when Gaunce mentioned to him the cash prize, he declined it and suggested Gaunce could give it to someone who needed it in Brown’s name, if he so chose.
Page started preparing the wall over the past couple of weeks by scraping off loose paint to make the surface more smooth.
“It’s going to take a lot of cleaning,” he said.
Weather permitting, Page said he hoped to have a solid month of painting in February and have it completed by March 1.
He said he just hoped the community would understood that the contributions would be going to a charity that helps a lot of local people.
Copas echoed that, adding, “I hope that this is a positive thing for people, and people see it that way, and the funds that can be generated from this …, that goes to help Bridge Kentucky do what we do and just assist community members.”
Inside improvements
Gaunce has plans for multiple uses for the inside of the Mitchell Terry Building as well, but building code violations that existed before he purchased it have to be remedied first.
At the front of the building, which faces the Glasgow Public Square, he hoped to have something like a pastry shop with perhaps an ice cream shop right next to it, and he’d like to see a bar/restaurant in the far-right corner section of the property.
The side of the Mitchell Terry Building that faces West Main Street at the northwest corner of the Glasgow Public Square is slated for a mural. The Allstate office that was at the front of the building, facing the square, has moved since this photo was taken in December. MELINDA J. OVERSTREET / GLASGOW NEWS 1
Turning the corner to the West Main Street-facing side, where the mural is intended to be, a couple of people have expressed interest in using the former Durham’s Barber Shop location on the ground floor for that same purpose again, and another person may want to set up a photography studio next to it, Gaunce said.
New windows have been ordered for the West Main-facing side, and electrical work is being done and/or arranged throughout the building, he said. Additional work may be necessary as well.
He said he doesn’t have a specific idea of how he wants to use the interior of the three-story structure immediately behind the Mitchell Terry Building – to the right of it if viewing from West Main.
Just past that, though, is a one-story sequence of spaces, part of which had housed 212 on the Main, the gallery space for the Arts Guild of the Barrens, and Gaunce would prefer to demolish those, depending on the cost, and possibly construct something new there.
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