Ed Trask’s Northside Narrative Mural Coming to Bellevue Before Thanksgiving

by Charles McGuigan 09.2021

Cover photo features one of Ed’s recent murals.

Motorists, cyclists and pedestrians, as they travel north or south on Brook Road, will soon lay eyes on a panoramic visual narrative describing the diverse and progressive communities that make up Richmond’s Northside.

Thanks to the Bellevue Civic Association (BCA), which has already allocated $1500 for the project, a mural will soon grace the entire east wall of the former laundry on the southwest corner of Brook Road and Bellevue Avenue. A wall, incidentally, that one of Richmond’s premier mural artists has had his eye on for a long time. So it seems fitting that the BCA committee overseeing the mural project selected that man for this public art project. Fellow mural artist Nico Cathcart once called him “the godfather of all muralists around here,” a fitting description of Ed Trask.

“We want the mural to be what expresses the thoughts and feelings of our Northside neighborhoods,” says Joyce Foster, with the BCA’s Engagement and Outreach Committee. “That’s why it’s called the Northside Neighborhood Mural.”

Once the BCA decided to sponsor the Northside Mural, Joyce helped organize the entire project.

A number of area artists expressed interest in creating the mural. “We had upwards of fifteen artists that were originally interested,” says Joyce.  “The semi-finalists were S. Ross Browne, Kevin Orlosky, Noah Scalin, and Ed Trask. “

A request for proposal (RFP) was sent out to every artist who was interested. “The RFP explained our purpose, and concept development, location, size, procedure, and what they would be expected to provide within their quote,” Joyce says. “I gave them my proposed schedule timewise, and every proposal had to fit within a 10,000 budget.”

Under the concept development portion of the RFP artists were informed about what the committee was looking for in the mural.  “We said that the mural concept is intended to welcome passersby to the Northside of Richmond,” says Joyce. “It can include a verbal message, be simple in design, but inclusive of images representing the area.”

To get an idea what Northsiders most love about their community, the BCA conducted a survey, and the response was formidable.   

“We received some fantastic feedback,” Joyce says.  “Families walking dogs, parents pushing strollers, the Bellevue Theatre, the Bellevue Arch, gardens, and other images outside of Bellevue.”

Folks also got a chance to offer words that best describe the myriad neighborhoods that comprise the Northside. 

“Accepting, love, community, diverse, friendly, artsy, eclectic,  unique, inclusivity, justice, BLM, LGBTQ, environmentalism, unity, art, music, preservation, restoration, local economy,  anti-corporate,” says Joyce without taking a breath. “That’s just one of the shorter columns. We got some great feedback.”

The proposals from the four semi-finalists were all superb. “All four artists that we met with are great,” Joyce tells me. “So it was going to be a difficult decision.” Something Joyce had heard from Jennifer Glave caught her attention. “She said Ed has talked for years about wanting to paint a mural on this wall,” Joyce says.

Each artist would have a Zoom meeting with an eight-member panel from the BCA committee in charge of the project. Following those meetings, the panel would make its final decision.  

“We met with Ed last and we’d been sitting there all afternoon, meeting with people, then having breaks and discussions, and then finally we got him on the screen,” Joyce remembers.

What pushed them over the edge to select Ed was what he said. “Charles, he spoke our language,” says Joyce. “He just painted a picture with his words. It was just such a revelation. He actually said everything that we would have wished, and when we got off of the call all eight of us said, ‘Yes, he’s the one, he’s the fit.’”

What words had Ed spoken that were so compelling?

“Let me tell you some of the words he used,” Joyce says. “He hit the ball out of the park.” She pauses, and I can hear her leafing through a stack of papers. “Here are his exact words,” she continues. “’Vivid, colorful storyline. It should be for everybody, it’s a split second to capture your attention as you’re zooming past so it would be nice if it was something that would make you want to turn around and come back, and study it.’ He mentioned the trolley, but ‘vivid colorful story line’ just grabbed me and everyone else because that’s exactly what we want.”

Along with the $1500 for the mural project earmarked by the BCA, more than an additional $2500 has also been raised for the effort. “We have a GoFundMe site,” Joyce says. “We are also doing fund-raising with organizations and businesses in the Northside such as the Northside Y and the Lewis Ginter Recreation Association.”

And on September 11, from 11 till 2, there will be an official kickoff for the project to be held on the parking lot off the alleyway behind the CVS on Bellevue. “We’ll have an information tent where we can tell people about the mural and we’ll also collect donations there,” says Joyce. There will also be vendors selling grab-and-go food items. Among them, according to Joyce, will be Stir Crazy Café and Dot’s Back Inn. Joe and Brenda Stankus, and Battery Park Christian Church will be giving out free bottled water. 

Live music is also scheduled for the event. “We’ve got three bands that will provide music for thirty minutes each,” Joyce says.

There will be some fun and games as well. “The most fun activity is we’ll have chalk laid out on the sidewalk in front of the wall and children and adults can come and draw images of what they think the mural should be,” says Joyce. There will also be an official ribbon-cutting ceremony, and artist Ed Trask will apply the first brush stroke to the wall.

If all goes well, the mural should be completed before Thanksgiving. “We’ll have two meetings with Ed following our kickoff event on the eleventh,” Joyce tells me. “The artist will then provide three optional concept sketches for review and final selection by the committee. And then Ed says, according to his schedule, he should be able to start in mid-October and he’ll probably work into November.”

Ed Trask who has left his indelible mark on the city he loves tells me he is interested in telling the entire story of the Northside.  “I believe that there’s so much rich history in the Northside that’s valid for all of Richmond’s story,” he tells me. “And I think it’s worthy of visual storytelling, a mural that can be painted for everybody.”

Ed invites me to consider driving by the finished mural. “Usually, if you’re seeing a mural via an automobile or a bike you have a couple-second trajectory to really look at it,” he says. “So the hope is that through composition and color you’ll want to come back and look. Then, when you actually look at the thematics of what the mural is about, you really want to come back and delve into the story line and see exactly what it is you missed the first time you went past it. And then, my hope is that the story line that I’m portraying on the wall somehow intertwines with the person's own personal story line.”