Grant will help arts draw tourists to Fitzgerald

FITZGERALD — Tourism is a vital industry in Georgia, as it is in nearly any location in today’s world. Tourism generates money for the local economy and helps show outsiders what that state or community has to offer.

But what attracts tourists to small, rural Georgia communities?

People in the Fitzgerald community believe that public art is an important key to answering that question, and the community was recently awarded a Vibrant Communities Grant from the Georgia Council for the Arts to help make that happen.

Brandy Elrod, the director of tourism, arts & culture for the city of Fitzgerald, has been working on a project to bring murals to downtown Fitzgerald for years. Two murals have already been completed as part of the ongoing project.

“We started with a small interactive mural that was a Fitzgerald-Ben Hill Arts Council Junior Board project featuring angel wings that you could pose in front of to take photos,” Elrod said. “Once we had the community support, we decided to go for a larger project. Last year, we were awarded the Georgia Council for the Arts FY ‘18 Vibrant Communities Grant to paint the Train Mural.”

After the Train Mural was completed with the help of funding from the grant, the decision was made to apply again for more funding for another mural project.

Elrod and co-author of the grant, Shelby Evans, knew that the FY ‘19 Vibrant Communities Grant applied for would provide funding for more than one mural. They decided to do one mural focusing on the civil rights work of Fitzgerald native Morris Abram and another, more whimsical mural, with downtown Fitzgerald’s signature wild chickens.

Morris Abram is known for his landmark Supreme Court Case “One Person, One Vote,” and according to Elrod, he was “a significant figure in the Jewish community both locally and nationally.”

“His legacy should be spotlighted, celebrated and documented,” Elrod said. “These murals are a depiction of the stories that need to be told.”

Elrod and Grant said they felt that this specific grant was perfect for the community and the specific mural project.

“The grant is made for arts projects that many communities could not otherwise fund,” Elrod said. “Because it is funded based on the county, we were not competing with projects in larger metro areas. It is also a smaller 50/50 matching rant, and it was something that we could afford. It is not possible for us to apply for some of the larger grants, because it would be difficult to come up with the match and continue other programming projects.”

With the most recent grant award of $5,000 and the previous award of the same amount, the community of Fitzgerald has received $10,000 in funding for their mural project through the Vibrant Communities Grant program.

The Morris Abrams Mural was designed by T. Clark Stancil, and Douglas-based artist Dylan Ross will paint the mural using that design. Ross also painted the train mural.

The Train Mural is already located in downtown Fitzgerald, and the Abrams and the Wild Chicken murals will be located in downtown Fitzgerald as well.

“The Fitzgerald-Ben Hill Arts Council in partnership with the city of Fitzgerald is undertaking the facilitation and creation of murals throughout the historic downtown area to make the community a more vibrant place to be,” Elrod said. “ … Despite all of the improvements done over the years, our downtown still needs more revitalization. The completion of the murals will be a major step forward in making the community a more unified and vibrant place to be.

“It has always been my passion to make the arts readily available and accessible. Our murals also go along with our plans to demonstrate what makes Fitzgerald unique. The addition of these murals will provide an extraordinary opportunity for every resident to have exposure to art that does not cost admission, is present at all times, tells a story, empowers all individuals and enhances the community.”

The murals are part of a larger plan to make tourism a more prominent industry in Fitzgerald, and Elrod said she believes that having vibrant murals in the downtown area will prompt even more enhancement projects and economic development.

Elrod also said she believes that the murals will make art more accessible in the rural area and will resolve various complaints from community members of a lack of public art.

“All of these murals are part of an initiative to improve the look and feel of the historic downtown area to tell our story and to create another tourism draw in the city of Fitzgerald,” Elrod said.