By: Tim Nail
Glenn Mitchell, 50, says her life’s mantra is “design is design is design.” A hairdresser with her own salon in Decatur, Alabama, Mitchell is also a mural artist among other creative outlets.
“I’m actually a photographer as well and an interior designer,” she said. “It’s all the same shapes, colors, shadows and light that translates from one genre to another. I generally try to tell people I’m creative, because if I start listing all the things I do, I sound crazy.”
Mitchell is something of an arts representative for Decatur thanks in no small part to her Chasing Art mural project. Through her work and that of other muralists, the riverside city has added to its assemblage of urban art, decorating its walls over the last few years. This comes at the same time the city seeks to grow its Alabama Center for the Arts school.
“When I first started this project, I really wanted to spotlight all the cultural differences that we have in the city of Decatur,” Mitchell said. “I have always been fond of public art and in my 30s I really decided that much of my travels would be centered around getting to see new pieces by artists I’ve admired. When my friends would ask what I was going somewhere for, I would just say I’m ‘chasing art.’”
Direct inspiration for the project came when Mitchell visited Fort Smith, Arkansas, in the mid-2010s, which was in the process of bringing public art to its landmarks and main street.
“I didn’t know it could be possible in a small Southern city, but Fort Smith’s downtown footprint is almost identical to Decatur’s,” she said. “They have a two-block historic downtown and a small arts college there, and that’s about it. As soon as I saw their pieces going up, I started watching.”
One day, she crossed paths with Steve Clark, an Arkansas entrepreneur who had spearheaded a nonprofit called 64.6 Downtown that aimed to spur economic development in Fort Smith. Through their conversations she learned he had an extensive plan for murals in the community and was regularly flying a French curator in to help coordinate art.
“I was thinking if they’re doing something in this small world, we could be doing it in Decatur, too,” Mitchell said. “About a year or two after I visited Arkansas, our Main Street community group, Decatur One, did a huge survey with citizens about what they’d like to see most. The No. 1 thing (citizens) said was public art.”
For Mitchell, this was not a surprise. Having grown up in Los Angeles as a kid, she said street art was a common sight in her childhood and felt it often brought character to the cityscape.
Yet, her interest in making it happen in Decatur came much later in life. When Mitchell moved with her dad to the north Alabama city at 17, she wanted to pursue cosmetology and fashion.
“I went to cosmetology school at 21 or 22, and I’ve always been super ambitious, so I knew I wanted more training than what I got here,” she said. “I traveled to New York to attend the (New York) Institute of Art and Design and loved the culture there. But I love Decatur, too, and tell people I live here by choice.”
Mitchell said her drive to work on murals was born from her later work with interior design, where she painted large abstract art in homes. She came to know Michael McPheeters, a Texas artist who concentrated in painting murals there and in Los Angeles. Later, the two collaborated on a piece for an energy business in Danville, Alabama, about 17 miles south of Decatur.
“I started with concrete floors, a couple of walls and redesigned their whole office,” Mitchell said. “I brought Michael in to help paint this 20-foot wall, and that’s kind of how it got started.”
The final piece featured energy workers facing the viewer in the foreground with an American flag in the background.
From her life in Decatur post-art school, Mitchell met Jason “JBird” Sharp, a beloved local artist who painted street art and several murals around the city. Mitchell said she was a close friend to Sharp for about 10 years until his sudden death in 2019 from a heart attack.
“He was this larger-than-life character and pretty much everyone in Decatur used to call him the (unofficial) ‘Mayor of Decatur,’” Mitchell said. “You could call on him for anything, and he would donate. He would do, you name it.”
That’s why Sharp was the first person she reached out to when she wanted to establish the Chasing Art project. And it is why, in some of her murals created through the project, observant viewers might spot a bee nestled among the other vibrant colors present. Sharp couldn not see Chasing Art come to fruition before his death, so it is a posthumous way Mitchell said she’s sought to make him a part of it.
“(Sharp and I) used to sit around and have a Waffle House breakfast, and we would try to think of ways we put up graffiti without really getting in trouble, because both of us were well known in the community,” Mitchell said.
“We talked about pressure washing butterflies on the streets, so it wasn’t permanent … [We were] trying to think of these fun ways to brighten peoples’ day by seeing something around town that was unexpected but not in a way that was harmful.”
Their answer was to paint a large yellow bumblebee outline on wall outside of Mitchell’s salon building she had recently painted all black, but they wanted to do it under the cover of night.
“It’s midnight and (Sharp’s) got his projector, and he and I painted the bumblebee … until 3 a.m. on the side of my building,” Mitchell said. “I’ve always said that it was the very first, original Chasing Art project piece, so we take the bee with us when we do another one.”
Mitchell has since relocated her salon, but the mural persists on Oak Street in Decatur. Other murals, like a welcome wall Mitchell and local high school students painted in May 2021, include smaller bees incorporated into the art.
By now, Mitchell has not only gained acclaim for her work locally, but it’s gained her recognition in other areas of Alabama. She now acts as a consultant for places seeking to introduce public art, like Pelham, whose city council called on her to help settle a mural dispute between a local business owner and a commissioned muralist.
“(The business owner) hired an artist to do a butterfly, and I’m assuming the business owner wanted something like the wings people stand in front of and photograph themselves
with,” Mitchell said. “But the owner, not knowing anything about artists or how you go through a contract process … didn’t like them because they weren’t butterflies you could stand in front of.”
She said the business owner painted over the piece, creating conflict with the artist. Later, Mitchell was called on by Pelham city leaders to lend her expertise on what might help resolve differences between the business and the artist.
Mitchell understood the situation to an extent because she, too, faced an uphill battle bringing her Chasing Art concept to the Decatur City Council. The old guard that dominated the council wasn’t so amicable to the idea, and Mitchell said it took several years for new council members to be voted in and the Decatur One community survey for Chasing Art to gain support.
“Our current city council is way more open-minded than the council I started with,” Mitchell said. “We pretty much have a brand-new city council now, and everyone is very young and progressive and understands the value that public art brings to a city.”
Danielle Gibson, president and CEO of Decatur Morgan County Tourism, said Mitchell’s hard-fought efforts have now “created a new visitor experience” for the city and have helped generate more traffic downtown.
“What’s unique about Glenn is she not only funds the artists for the project, she also raises the money for the murals,” Gibson said. “For her to go out and find the funds, then find the buildings where she has to have permission from the building owners, then to curate the piece and get the artists to agree to come and paint the mural is just incredible.”
Gibson said it is pieces like an angel wings mural on Grant Street that that have helped boost tourism to Decatur in the past couple of years. The piece is not just from any muralist; It was painted by Kelsey Montague, who’s reached internet fame for spreading her signature wings across many states and other countries.
Mitchell said Decatur had been on a waiting list to have Montague visit and create the mural, but the COVID-19 pandemic helped fast-track the commission after other cities shifted priorities and Montague added Decatur to her list of sites in 2020.
“Glenn Mitchell really created a movement of art,” Gibson said. “She’s been incredible at bringing different types of people to the table and it really takes artists a lot of talent to do what they do especially on that grand scale with murals.”
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