MCHS Mural Artists
The Prescription Shop Mural adds Beauty to Downtown Stuart
he mural that graces the wall
on The Prescription Shop in
downtown Stuart is much
more than a mesmerizing and
fascinating work of art. It also
demonstrates what is possible
when people with a similar vision
work towards a goal selflessly and
without ego.
Kim Jones has owned The Prescription
Shop, located just west of the roundabout at the
intersection of MLK Boulevard and Colorado
Avenue, for five years. Every morning when she
pulled into the parking lot and saw the big blank
wall, she thought what an improvement it would
be if she could get some students to paint on it to
perk it up.
Considering that the wall is 70-feet long
and between 12-14 feet high, Kim knew it couldn’t
be a casual little project.
She approached Amanda Jones (no
relation), an art teacher at Martin County High
School (MCHS) in 2016, but Amanda was involved
with another project and couldn’t undertake the
mural.
In January, 2018 Amanda, joined by
fellow MCHS art teacher Bryan Johnson, met
again with Kim. The store owner was still enthused
and definitely wanted to go ahead with the mural,
stressing it should be the brainchild of the students.
4 MartinArts | Spring | Summer 2019
Tom Winter
By Jackie Holfelder
She repeated her willingness for them to paint
anything they wanted, so long as it was tasteful.
Thus began a process that would result in
work on the mural finally beginning on October
20, 2018. On December 29, 2018 the impressive
work of art was completed. During that period,
volunteers worked on the project virtually every
weekend.
In the intervening months, there were
many tasks that needed to be undertaken, although
one major one was not met with enthusiastic
support.
After making the decision to have the
history of Stuart as the subject, Bryan decided to
take the lead art students to the Feed Store (the
Stuart Heritage Museum) located on Flagler Street
to do research and get ideas about what should be
included in the painting. He recalled that initially
they had some difficulty buying into history as the
theme, but after discovering so many fascinating
details about the area, they became more and more
enthusiastic.
Simultaneously, says Amanda, the nuts
and bolts of the permitting process needed to be
attended to. She had the young artists participate
every step of the way. The end result was that they
all learned so much about Art in Public Places that
what could have been a tedious process became a
great learning experience.
As the project unrolled and the mural
T