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SPENCER — That art is becoming part of Spencer’s history is cyclical, because it is in large part due to a concerted effort to hold on to the town’s history. A large mural on the side of the town hall that was just completed is intended to represent different times in Spencer’s history and it’s a prime example of the years-long project the town has undertaken. “In 2021, the town began a two-part project,” said Skye Allen, a masters of public administration intern with the town.
“The first part of the project was the restoration of ten vintage or ghost signs throughout the town that are important to our history.” Allen said the goal is for the community to retain its identity. “History stays alive in and through us,” she added.
The second part of the project is new murals that also reflect parts of the town’s history. Three have been completed, one on the Dollar General, one on the old Ludwig & Linoleum Carpet store, which is made up of separate panels, and the one on town hall that captures different eras in town. The town put out a request for applications for the art work.
Enter Max Dowdle, a native North Carolinian from a family of artists, who earned a double major in fine art and art history from the College of Charleston before continuing his studies at Charles Cecil Studios in Florence, Italy. His focus in college was actually sculpture, he said, but in Italy, his studies, which he described as “art boot camp,” let him to a career in fine art. But eventually he strayed into designing artwork for graphic novels, which meant attending comic conventions.
However, his interest in public art continued to grow through the two decades of artwork, and in 2019, he did a mural for city hall in Durham. “Then the pandemic hit, and my public work took off,” he said. Since his first project he has been consigned to create a myriad of public artworks, and this year, he started a large project of his own, Legacy NC, in which he plans to create 100 murals in the 100 counties of North Carolina.
One of those will be in Salisbury. But the Spencer mural, which took him two weeks to complete, is devoted to Spencer alone. “I gathered a lot of information from the town and worked with them on what each section would contain,” he said, “and I’ve worked to give each section a style reflective of the time.
” For instance, the first section is intended to feel like a lithograph or etching and captures Saponi Native Americans trading at Shallow Ford in the Yadkin River. The second section was a little bit of a diplomatic challenge, according to Allen. “There is history of slavery here, but we didn’t want to depict something negative or painful,” she said.
“But we do want to honor the contributions from and residency of Black Americans, so this section depicts Black farm workers working their own land.” The next section is of a woman caring for her children, reflecting the indispensable work of women in the home, followed by a section showing Spencer Shops workers inside the main building. “We learned that trains are never fired inside the shops, and we really worked on accuracy,” said Allen, The next section is a group of women workers at the Fabric Finishing Plant that used to be on the hillside by what is now the Yadkin River Park on the Spencer side.
“Given our hopes and plans for that area it made sense to honor its history,” said Allen. The sixth section shows workers at Boone Rock Bottling Plant where Boone cola was made in the 1940s, named after Daniel Boone. Next is a piece showcasing grocery store workers.
The current town hall used to be an A&P, and it made sense to include that. The eighth and center panel shows the Spencer Labor Day parade with ticker tape and military folks, honoring the local contributions to the armed forces. Next, visitors will see a young man working at the Spencer School of Watchmaking, which was created to give developmentally disabled people, TB patients and veterans training to do a remunerative job.
The next panel, said Dowdle, is the only one to reflect an actual person from Spencer’s history. It shows Dr. Rufus Early Clement, N.
C.’s first Black doctor, who was not allowed to practice publicly but who treated patients out of his home. Next is a depiction of a North Rowan High School teacher, and not only is it intended to honor the teaching profession and local schools but the integration of schools as well.
The final section is the Tennessean or 1380. In the 1940s, it was the only train in service that had been streamlined, or finished, in Spencer. The project was primarily funded by grants, said Allen, though the city did provide a small portion of the funds.
Local support, she said, was instrumental and essential, and came from a variety of sources including the Rowan Arts Council, the Salisbury Rowan Community Foundation, The Blanche and Julian Robertson Family Foundation and the Margaret C. Woodson Foundation. Two more murals are in the works, one on the other side of town hall and one on the side of the N.
C. Doll & Toy Museum. In addition, two more property owners have given permission for murals on their structures and that RFQ is currently available.
Dowdle said he welcomes anyone interested in his work to check out his social media pages as well as his company website, NC Public Art, where he is the director. According to the website, Dowdle believes that while he has continued to hone his skills an an artist, he has “also grown as a storyteller, endeavoring to imbue his compositions with the narrative pathos of community as well as dynamic command of the brush.” “We think he did an incredible job, not only because of his talent as an artist, but because of the way he captured our history so beautifully,” said Allen.
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