MARYVILLE, Tenn. — Three Maryville artists are working to make Blount County more beautiful, and are painting a mural in downtown Maryville.
The painting, located at the corner of West Broadway Avenue and North Cusick Street, should be finished by Saturday to coincide with the city's Summer on Broadway and Hops in the Hills events.
Artists Will Lunsford, Pinkie Mistry and Charles Finley all operate art galleries and work with different mediums.
Lunsford's contribution to the mural, which is meant to highlight the beauty of the foothills of the Great Smoky Mountains, uses spray paint as his medium. He owns Wide Awake studio and said it's important for him to give back to the community.
"I've been a part of the downtown community and lived here all my life," Lunsford said. "And to see a piece of my art that other people can enjoy and the community can engage with every day is just, it's kind of a dream come true."
He's working on the right-hand side of the mural.
"Which will feature the lettering 'Downtown Maryville,'" he said. "To kind of feature, as people are coming up the street and entering downtown, they'll be able to recognize, 'Okay, this is our downtown community.'"
Artist Charles Finley, owner of CFinley Art, is responsible for the middle portion of the mural.
He said he's basing it off a watercolor painting he's done of the area.
"I'm working on, I'm using a reference from one of my favorite paintings that I've done, which is not something I don't say a lot," Finely said. "But just there was a farm, a local farm, that I painted and we're going to put that right here on the centerpiece."
Finley said he's feeling the community support of the project, as all three artists are working on it all week ahead of this weekend's events in Maryville.
"I've painted in public before, but not on this scale," he said.
Pinkie Mistry owns her gallery, The Pinkie Mistry Gallery, in downtown Maryville. She grew up in Sevierville and said she's excited to be part of this mural right next to her gallery.
"I'm really excited to finally be able to do something here in Blount County and show my show my art here," she said. "It's very, just, colorful and pretty. I just wanted to do something beautiful here."