ARTIST CRAIG MCINNIS is about to get started on the largest outdoor public mural he has ever painted. He knows it’s a big job — and not just because of the mural’s massive concrete canvas.
McInnis has been selected to paint a new mural on the south exterior wall of the Cultural Council for Palm Beach County headquarters at 601 Lake Ave. in downtown Lake Worth Beach.
Not only will the mural, depicting a circle of people framed by flower petals, cover a wall nearly 40 feet high and 54 feet wide, it will replace the iconic Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. mural painted in 2017 by internationally-renowned artist Eduardo Kobra.
“I’m completely honored to follow an artist like Kobra and be on such an iconic wall,’’ McInnis said in an phone interview from his West Palm Beach studio. “To me, it’s like opening for the Rolling Stones.’’
A popular photo destination for the past seven years, Kobra’s spray-painted “I Have a Dream’’ image was removed last week. Painting contractors covered the mural with two coats of white primer as part of scheduled repairs to the 1949 art deco building’s exterior.
Many visitors and residents are upset that it's gone, but Cultural Council officials said the piece had reached its lifespan, its colors having faded from exposure to the sun and damage from graffiti.
More alarming to council officials, cracks have been spreading across the building’s south, west and east exterior walls. Removing the mural was necessary so contractors could start repairing cracks on that south wall, said Dave Lawrence, the council’s president and CEO.
“The cracks are all over the building,’’ said Lawrence, whose office is on the upper level of the building’s east side just south of Lake Avenue. “I have a trash can sitting up in my window that I have to empty when it rains because of the water coming in.''
The cracks on the back of the building were repaired last week. Although not as severe as the cracks on east and west walls, those cracks were repaired first because the council’s main gallery is directly below that south wall.
“If water gets in there, it could damage the artwork in all the exhibitions,’’ he said.
Workers will repair the cracks on the building’s east and west sides this fall after the mural is completed. They also will inspect the north wall.
Lawrence said he read many of the comments on different Lake Worth Beach community Facebook pages from people upset by the decision to remove the MLK mural. He said he hopes the public understands that the council had no choice.
“Everybody wants to place anger somewhere. I know they were very sad to see that go away,’’ he said. “The cracks were not the only reason. We did not feel that the mural, in the state that it was in and the significant fading, was living up to the artist’s expectation of that work. It was unfortunately time to decommission that mural.’’
He said the council reached out to Kobra and made several attempts to negotiate a deal for the Brazilian artist to return to Lake Worth Beach and repaint the MLK mural that he first painted in 2017 under a contract with the CANVAS Outdoor Museum Show.
Kobra’s request of several “hundred thousand dollars” was “cost-prohibitive” for the council, Lawrence said.
At that point, the council decided to invite a local Palm Beach County artist to paint a new mural around themes of “unity” and “community” and ideas of “healing, connections, wellness, and/or belonging.’’
Council officials did not discuss the idea of asking a local artist to paint a new mural of MLK.
“The discussion was around making sure it was a Palm Beach County-based artist. In order to honor the artist’s creative process, we did not place any specific thematic requirement to what they did other than themes of unity and community,’’ he said.
“If someone would have wanted to put forth a theme of MLK, we certainly would have entertained that, but we did not want to put any sort of thematic limitations on artists as they are creating,’’ he said.
The council’s budget for the new mural is $40,000.
“Interconnected” was chosen from three concept finalists by a panel of council judges, including Lawrence. The finalists were chosen from 12 submissions.
It depicts a flower with 18 people sitting around a table in the center, framed by a circle of colorful petals. It will overlook a future outdoor Arts & Wellness Space south of the Council building.
“I love it. It is exactly in line with what we were looking for,’’ Lawrence said. “I think it’s very colorful. It's going to fill the space nicely and I think it's something that everybody is going to really enjoy.’’
In its consideration process, Lawrence said, the panel gave prominent weight to feedback offered by the public on comment cards in the council’s lobby when the three concepts were displayed in June.
“There was very positive feedback around Craig’s concept,’’ he said. “It really spoke to what we were trying to do with that mural and our project space next to that mural.’’
McInnis said he plans to start sketching “Interconnected” later this week or this weekend. Weather permitting, he said he hopes to start adding color by the middle of next week.
When it’s completed, “Interconnected’’ will get something that “I Have A Dream” did not when it was finished in 2017 — layers of clear coating to protect the mural from exposure to ultraviolet rays that cause colors to fade.
“Hopefully we will be able to enjoy this one for quite a bit longer,’’ Lawrence said.
McInnis said he understands why the Kobra mural will be missed by so many people.
“Nothing is more popular than a mural of an icon like Bob Marley or Jimi Hendrix or Martin Luther King. That’s something people are already connected to on so many other levels. It's hard to go up against something that carries that much weight,’’ he said.
“Mine is simply conceptual art rather than icon art. Different lanes completely. Not every mural needs to be an icon.’’
McInnis, who recently finished a public mural in Boynton Beach that includes an image of King, said he knows from experience that outdoor public art isn’t meant to last forever.
“Probably 75 percent of the murals I’ve painted in public are gone. Material breaks down and building owners need to fortify their buildings. That’s just the nature of the beast,’’ said McInnis, who has a studio at The Peach art collective in West Palm Beach.
In downtown West Palm Beach, several murals painted during the CANVAS festivals from 2015-17 are gone, including two popular murals under the Royal Park Bridge. But those two bridge murals, removed by state contractors during a bridge rehab project, returned in February when the city brought back artist Hula to repaint them.
Hula also painted a mural under the Lake Worth Bridge – it’s still there – during the same 2017 festival where Kobra painted his MLK mural.
Kobra’s MLK mural received a formal send-off in April when the council hosted a public celebration of the piece. Free posters of the mural were given away.
“We are all sad to have it gone. It was an iconic mural. It meant a lot to all of us,’’ Lawrence said. “But all public art is temporary, right? And this mural just reached the end of its lifespan.’’
When McInnis finishes the mural, he will dive into his regular gig as creative director for Fright Nights, the annual Halloween haunted-house extravaganza at the South Florida Fairgrounds in October.
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About the author
Joe Capozzi is an award-winning reporter based in Lake Worth Beach. He spent more than 30 years writing for newspapers, mostly at The Palm Beach Post, where he wrote about the opioid scourge, invasive pythons, the birth of the Ballpark of the Palm Beaches and Palm Beach County government. For 15 years, he covered the Miami Marlins baseball team. Joe left The Post in December 2020. View all posts by Joe Capozzi.
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