Paint the Town: Clarksdale Mural Festival 2022

Paint The Town is an annual mural festival in Clarksdale, Mississipi. Madison Roy participated in this festival in collaboration with Bruna Petalla, a fellow muralist from New Orleans. This was their second mural together. The pair collaborated on this design from start to finish to create a reflective representation of the culture of Clarksdale, MS.

Clarksdale is believed to be the town that created The Blues. For this mural, they chose to feature things that Clarksdale is famous for. Much of Mississippi is farmland that grows and harvests cotton, so they chose to incorporate cotton in multiple stages of its life cycle when it is still a flower blossom and also when it has developed into the cotton we’re all familiar with. The quote on the screen of the jukebox is “The Blues is the roots, the rest is the fruits,” by Willie Dixon. Behind the jukebox is a vinyl record the melts onto the ground in front of the mural, creating a stage-like area that invites viewers to interact with the mural.