Southwest Iowa Arts Council
Connecting rural communities in Southwest Iowa
Through contemporary and traditional visual arts, promotion, and education.
"Studying Our Past, Looking To the Future"
The bright, colorful welcoming mural at the corner of 2nd and Coolbaugh is the prime spot heading into downtown Red Oak and Fountain Square Park.
It was designed to show past, present and a hopeful future. The concept centered on the Thos. D. Murphy Company, “Birthplace of the Art Calendar” and the 1932 calendar artwork “Hard Lesson” by Frederic Stanley.
Although the steam locomotive is front and center and quite important to the early development of the region, the top left corner of the mural pays homage to the indigenous people that were in the area long before the railroad. The artistically fictional calendar dated 1888 was the year Thomas D. Murphy and Edmond Osborne formed a publishing partnership that ultimately sculpted the shape of commerce in Red Oak.
The July 2024 calendar represents today and the completion of the mural and depicts a woman “looking to the future” wearing a VR (virtual reality) headset. Underneath the 2024 calendar, and partially hidden is the 1985 calendar with the DeLorean from the movie “Back to the Future” which ties into the theme of the mural.
The 2067 and the 2120 fictional calendars are both implying new ways of living and traveling that are in a harmonious balance with technology and nature, and presenting a future where there is a progression that gives us all freedom to explore and be stewards to nature.
The 2224 calendar is the common metaphor of transformation that the life cycle of a butterfly represents. Time changes all things, but the butterfly also represents the things that stay the same and the hope that despite all the ways humanity changes there will always be things found in our world as pure, beautiful, and mysterious as the metamorphosis of a butterfly.
Mural painting and application – Arbor Street Studios/Sharon and Edward Manhart
Design collaboration -Josh Audiss, Jim Hoskinson, Sharon Manhart and Edward Manhart
Major funding – Montgomery County Community Foundation, the Iowa Wes Foundation, Red Oak Hotel/Motel Tax grant, the Red Oak Rotary Club and Houghton State Bank.
It would not have been possible without the generous donations received and the countless hours from volunteers.
Would you like to see more murals in downtown Red Oak?
Consider a donation to the Southwest Iowa Arts Council to make this a possibility. If you’d like to donate via Paypal, click the “Donate Online” button.
