Downtown Blacksburg has a new house band for the ages with local artist Rita Brame just adding the finishing detail to 16 Blocks presents: The Local Jam – A Downtown Mural Celebrating Music Performance in the New River Valley.
The artist’s three-week mostly solo-process created a local viral social media sensation and traveling destination spot already with mural seekers anxious to see the 800-square-foot mural, located at 209 Draper Road Blacksburg, coming less than a month after the ribbon-cutting for Coffeeholics gargantuan-sized “Neon Owl” across the street.
Brame is a Radford and Floyd native and graduated from Radford University with a BFA in Painting and received an MFA from Winthrop University in Sculpture. She is a lifelong professional artist and designer, and the magazine’s Creative Director and Cover Artist.
“This was a difficult concept to pull off for many reasons, the sheer size and scope and tricky wall,” said Brame. “We smoothed the surface the best we could with a pressure washer and then sanding before laying down base coats. I kept the raccoon from St. Germaine’s piece and put him on the old plaque.”
“In my paintings/drawings of downtown Blacksburg I aim to preserve a moment in time and to capture a celebration of all that is good in a community,” she added.
16 Blocks Magazine is the nonprofit organization that produces the bi-monthly print and online arts and culture magazine covering Southwest Virginia. Creating public artworks has been a tradition for the magazine (the previous mural from 2013 was a 16 Blocks 1.0 Co-Production), and The Local Jam follows up Rita’s artistic decoration of the Stella Rose Outdoor Piano under the tents beside the mural in Fall 2023.
“I would expect a fresh crop of excellent musicians and performers and artists of all sorts coming out of and into Blacksburg for years to come due to the welcoming nature of the outdoor piano and the hallow depiction of players at work in live music creation,” said Hart Fowler, director of 16 Blocks. “The quality of the materials provided by local corporate sponsors makes the immaculate color design lasting power and pop in a way that can give a different perspective from five, 50 or 500 yards, and probably could be seen from space with a clear line of sight. Up close and at eye-level the detailed poses of the musicians and their instruments shows the technicality, craft, personality, and feeling on full-display.”
The mural runs the wall to the corner of Jackson Street and Pedestrian Only Draper Block in the center of downtown Blacksburg and features over 20 players poised throughout a vibrant and surreal backdrop.
There will be an official ribbon-cutting in late July at the mural and event under the tents at the Stella Rose Outdoor Piano, and live event at The Burgs Restaurant. For more information visit 16blocks.org, #ritabrame.art, facebook.com/16blocksmagazine, Youtube@16blocksvideo.
Staff Report
