The bygone era known as the Jazz Age will soon find new life via art in downtown Murfreesboro with the inspired aid of Erin Anfinson, assistant professor of art at MTSU, who will return to The Heritage Center of Murfreesboro and Rutherford County to complete a new mural depicting this historic time.
Since July 1, Anfinson?along with MTSU students Emily May-Ragland and Sarah Sullivan?avidly works each afternoon to create a Jazz Age-inspired mural, more than six feet tall and nearly 20 feet long, which depicts “flappers and Dapper Dans on a night out in Murfreesboro.”
A member of MTSU’s art faculty since 2006, Anfinson “has designed a mural that reflects the Jazz Age’s energy and art deco aesthetics,” said Melissa Zimmerman, heritage programming specialist for the Center for Historic Preservation.
“Art deco design, patterns and color palettes have always struck me as exceptionally lively and fun subject matter, which made conducting research for this project a pleasure,” said Anfinson, referring to the project and art deco style, an international design movement popular from 1925 until 1939.
“The design for this mural stemmed from photos, art deco designs and illustrations from the 1920s,” she continued. “The Heritage Center folks suggested that the mural reflect a sense of 1920s nightlife or illustrate a ?speakeasy’ feel. I looked at a lot of paintings and illustrations and decided to work in the final design with several couples dancing and socializing at a bar. The background will be directly from an art deco, stained-glass pattern I found.”
The nationally recognized artist said the mural was a unique opportunity for some of the department’s students to further hone their painting skills.
“Both of these women have impressed me as exceptional students in our department, and I’m thrilled to bring their ideas and technical talents to this project,” Anfinson said of May-Ragland and Sullivan. “I don’t think either of them have worked on a commissioned painting this large before and I hope this will be a valuable professional experience they can draw on in the future.”
As for the theme of the mural, Zimmerman said, “The choice of art deco style also brings to mind such lost architectural treasures as Murfreesboro’s Princess Theatre, which once sat on the corner of College and Maple streets, lit up with neon lights and showing the best Hollywood had to offer?just a half-block away from the Heritage Center.”
Zimmerman said the original mural will serve as the backdrop for an expanded exhibit titled Entering the Modern Era: Murfreesboro’s Jazz Age, which looks at the events, people and institutions that helped transform Murfreesboro and Rutherford County during this early 20th-century era.
“I am excited to be working with the Heritage Center again this summer and was honored to have been asked to complete this new mural,” said Anfinson, who is perhaps best known for her landscape paintings that have gained national attention, showing in galleries from New York to Nashville. Recent exhibits of her works have been held at both the TAG Art Gallery and Ruby Green Contemporary Art Center in Nashville. Anfinson also painted the Occupied Murfreesboro mural at the Heritage Center last summer, which is on display at the center’s main exhibit gallery as part of a permanent Civil War exhibit for the City of Murfreesboro and Rutherford County.
