The Punta Gorda Historic Mural Society celebrates three decades of keeping the city’s past alive.
During the 1990s, a local physician, Dr. Bob Andrews by name, had a notion to find ways to attract more businesses, visitors, and attention to the city of Punta Gorda.
“Dr. Bob had visited a place in Canada where they had painted public murals,” said Kelly Gaylord. “It was a way to attract tourists and people to the city, so he brought the idea back to the revitalization committee and also to the business alliance—which was the precursor to the Punta Gorda Chamber of Commerce—and said, ‘Hey, listen, I think we could do murals here on our buildings; we have a lot of buildings.’ …
“‘I think … each mural should capture a slice of our history.’”
It was a hard sell back then—public murals weren’t as common as they are now—but by the beginning of 1995, Andrews founded the Punta Gorda Historical Mural Society. Gaylord knows all about that. She’s been a member since 2007 and became its current president in 2016.
It’s been a long haul since the fledgling organization was able to raise enough money to hire an artist to paint its first mural, which was completed in October 1995.
“It went so well, and everybody loved it so much that it just took off from there, and they started more and more murals,” Gaylord said.
The Punta Gorda Historic Mural Society is a nonprofit, 501 (c)(3) organization managed by an all-volunteer board of directors. It not only connects the public to art, but it also plays an integral role in preserving the city’s history.
“I mean, 30 years as a nonprofit is just really amazing,” Gaylord noted. “We’ve been around for 30 years, and not a lot of nonprofits can say that. And we have been very successful.”
The last big celebration was the society’s 25th, and times have changed.
“It was different back then, over the course of the 30 years,” Gaylord said. “Originally, artists would actually paint the renderings, and they would make to-scale renderings on a canvas.
“Now, we do digital renderings and don’t actually paint on a canvas.”
The Punta Gorda Historic Mural Society launched a book for its 30th anniversary, including all the new murals.
Sadly, not all the murals that have graced the walls of Punta Gorda establishments have survived.
“We’ve lost murals over the years to hurricanes and other things,” Gaylord said.
Although saddened when they lose a mural, they try to recreate it in another location if they can.
“But the community has really been very supportive over the years, and they continue to be. And we continue to improve—or up our game, if you will—looking for fresh new artists that bring new perspectives and different talents.”
“It’s really something that the community gets behind, and they love when a new mural is going up,” she said, adding that, “The overall quality of our murals is superb.”
In addition to being aesthetically pleasing, the murals remind residents and visitors alike of the city’s rich history.
And that’s right up Gaylord’s alley.
A lover of local history, Gaylord enjoys researching and talking about Punta Gorda’s past. She even teaches a history class on Monday and Tuesday nights where people frequently ask her “How did we ever get to where we are today?”
Gaylord also leads mural walking tours, and what she finds exceptionally exciting is this:
“I’ve had people on my tours who have said to me, ‘I just want you to know we heard about these murals. We came here, we saw them, we love the town—and now we live here.’”
For additional information, please go to puntagordamurals.com.
