Monticello Main Street hires mural artist

     Think spring!

   “This mural will be my first substantial one of the new year,” acknowledged Beau Stanton, a self-described multi-disciplinary artist from Brooklyn, N.Y.

   Monticello Main Street hired Stanton to paint a mural on the side of the downtown Innovation Lab, at the corner of First and Cedar streets. Work will begin this April.

   “We wanted our first mural to be a splash,” shared Main Street Director Brian Wolken. “We want people from all over the world to stop in Monticello to look at the wall.”

   Late last year, Monticello Give to Grow announced its formation through the Community Foundation of Greater Dubuque’s “Small-town Dreams Initiative.”

   The first phase of the initiative was to secure $150,000 in donations toward Monticello Give to Grow to help establish an endowment. That goal was achieved, allowing for the award of a $15,000 grant from an anonymous donor associated with the Community Foundation. That grant was to be applied to an “immediate project,” according to Jacob Oswald with Give to Grow.

   Give to Grow chose to partner with Main Street for a mural project.

   “The excitement goes clear back to when Main Street was organized (in August 2022),” noted Wolken. “Place-making and public art has always been on the list.”

   Wolken explained that “place-making” is a term associated with Main Street Iowa and Main Street America referring to those attractions in a downtown that keep people walking and looking around.

   “It’s those little things that can easily for forgotten about in your downtown,” he said.

   This is not Stanton’s first time in Iowa, nor his first mural in the state.

   In 2022, he was commissioned by Humanities Iowa and Voices Productions (Voices Mural Project) to paint a mural in Dubuque. In fact, it was the director of Voices, Sam Mulgrew, who clued Monticello Main Street onto Stanton.

   “When we started trying to learn about how to regulate murals in a community and what is the process, I reached out to Sam,” recalled Wolken. “He helped us craft what the mural scene in Monticello can look like.”

   Last fall, Mulgrew knew Stanton was driving back to New York from California. It all worked out, and Stanton was able to swing through Monticello and meet with Wolken and the Main Street team.

   He looked over the Innovation Lab building and other landmarks in and around Monticello while he was in town in early November.

   “He gave us a great art lesson on art history and the different things we have downtown, how he draws his inspiration from buildings the facades,” shared Oswald.

   After researching Stanton’s work themselves, Main Street knew he was their guy.

   “The biggest thing that the group was worried about was if we get an artist who’s only going to do his style and doesn’t take the surroundings into consideration,” Wolken said. “You could have a mural that doesn’t fit in Monticello. Within five minutes of talking to Beau, he was drawing Monticello architecture and signs like what’s on McNeill Hardware. He said, ‘Those signs are awesome! We need more of those in the world.’

   “We were very much intentional on wanting a mural that was inspirational art. We are hiring an artist to bring a piece of fine art to Monticello; art for art’s sake. He was nice and it was reassuring to hear where he draws his inspiration from.”

   While Stanton and Main Street are careful not to disclose too much about what could be depicted in the mural, Stanton offered, “When I drove through (Monticello), I got to meet everybody and see the main street (First Street) and a little bit of the town. It struck me as a place that would be a place I could have an impact and the mural could create a lot of positivity. It would be just a fun project at the end of the day.

   “The choice that I make with the projects I take on are based on a range of factors. At the end of the day when you meet some solid people and you know you’ll have a good time doing the project, that’s really what it’s all about.

   “Obviously being an agricultural community and things that grow and things that are seasonal, rotate. There are a lot of interesting symbols and metaphors that I can pull inspiration from.

   “I like to do some preliminary research related to the immediate area and any interesting architectural elements or unique things that are around. I also like to find out about any nuggets of history that are particularly interesting or stand out. Also, things related to the natural landscape around the area. I often mix together the human-made stuff with the natural stuff; the interplay between the beauty of the things we construct with also the things already there and growing. The contrast between these different things.”

   Over the next six to eight weeks, Stanton will start working on the design for the mural and submit it to Main Street for their review. That final designed will be his reference point when he actually starting painting the mural. He shared that, depending on the scale of the mural and weather, it typically takes five to 15 days from start to finish.

   “When I’m dealing with broad themes and ideas, I want to tailor it to the place,” he said of making it about Monticello.

   Stanton has been a self-employed artist, “self-directed” as he calls it, for about 10 years. He has a passion for creating large-scale art that can be seen and enjoyed all over the world.

   “One of the really exciting things about the way that the urban art movement has evolved, is that it started in the big cities,” he said. “And it’s not actually happening in the big cities as much anymore; it’s taken over and trickling down to the smaller cities and towns, which I think is really incredible because you can have even more of an impact with the artwork in places that really want them by taking resources and banning together to these communities. It’s also a really great evolution of public art. I’ve done a number of projects like this in smaller cities and towns that are always really rewarding.”

   This mural, Wolken indicated, is 90 percent funded. Aside from the $15,000 Give to Grow grant, Main Street also received a $4,000 grant from the Iowa Arts Council’s Creative Catalyst Project.

   “We were excited to be awarded that grant because I found out about the grant the day it was due and wrote it and submitted it,” said Wolken. “That really gave us motivation make this happen and to make it big and splashy.”

   Main Street, themselves, also contributed $5,000. The owners of the Innovation Lab building also have a vested interest in the mural project.

   If you would like to contribute toward this mural, or Main Street’s future mural projects, contact Wolken at 319-465-1970 or monticelloiowamainstreet@gmail.com.