Mural raises questions

MILTON — The Santa Rosa Arts and Culture Foundation's building now features a mural on the west exterior wall, but some residents have questioned the imagery.

Foundation board member Toni New created the design and the Santa Rosa County Correctional Institution’s Inmates Painting program applied it to the building, located at 6815 Caroline St. in downtown Milton, according to board secretary Pamela Holt.

Natural Gas of Milton donated $500 to purchase paint and inmates donated their time, Holt said.

The mural features a half-sun with a face, an open book in front of it, and items representing several types of art surrounding the sun’s edge. They include a chef’s hat, needle and thread, pencil, paint brush, a tube of paint, a quill, a vase, theater masks, a bow and violin, a ballerina’s foot, a music symbol called a treble clef, and a camera.

However, when Jerry Couey drove by the gallery, he noticed something that could be misinterpreted. The purple thread looks like sperm trying to enter an egg, he said.

“After looking at the new mural on the Dragonfly Gallery, which 30,000 people drive by every day, it is my belief that some adjustments need to be made in the portrayal of the thread bobbin,” he said.

“The overall mural itself is quite well done but some have seen that it could be taken in different ways than it is painted, concerning the needle and the thread.”

In light of the thread’s unintended resemblance, it will be changed, according to Holt.

Otherwise, the board of directors is proud of the building’s new look and anticipate the foundation’s future, she said.

This article originally appeared on Santa Rosa Press Gazette: Mural raises questions