New Main Street Mural Installed

Boise-Since 2003 Boise City Department of Arts and History staff has worked with various community groups and non-profit organizations to develop changing murals on the construction walls at 8th and Main Street. This year Boise allocated funds from the Percent-for-Art program to commission a local emerging artist, who was selected through a competitive process as one of six artists-on-contract, to design and paint his first public art project. The project budget was $10,000 and the mural will remain up until 2013.

Boise artist Byron Folwell's mural "Strata" brings our hidden underground identity above ground and presents a new way of seeing it. "Strata" is a cross-section of the natural underground environment, cut, raised, and augmented in an effort to delight, inform, and inspire Boiseans and visitors alike. Boise's unique natural environment is reflected in a new way, celebrating that part of the city's (and state's) identity that lies below.

The fluid curves that dominate the work reflect the natural wind and water processes that formed the sedimentary rock layers under Boise. The lines are derived from graphical data about the various rock, metal, and mineral resources in Idaho. For example, the dominant black wave running the length of the mural is derived from graphical data illustrating the value of gold and silver (relative to the dollar) since Idaho's statehood. The vertical bands inside the black wave illustrate the spectral graph identity for these elements. Every shape, color, and relationship in the piece is reflective of, or generated by, a metal, mineral, or rock important to Idaho's identity.

"Strata" also conveys the critical relationship between the familiar above-ground world, and the foundational environment below. Trees, grasses, hills, and mountains are all highly-valued elements of Boise's natural environment - valued because of the immediate relationship people have with them. This mural reminds the viewer that these elements are merely the above ground extensions of an environment that extends into the core of the earth. The mural incorporates subtle comparisons between the underground environment and humans' own biological "strata." Human skin diagrams have been used as a basis for rendering certain portions of the work, as were other medical diagrams. A series of epoxy resin "bubbles" or "gems" or "eyes" are mounted to the surface of the piece, each containing images or artifacts from the past - adding another level of interaction with the piece. One looks into resin shaped like a crystal ball, revealing a miner's face from the 1800's or picture of the Eastman building.

Boise's public art program engages artists in the design of our built environment, decreases graffiti, and increases the unique character of our city streets.