Saturday, September 22, 2007

Another Ohio Floodwall Mural Project



Guess we're not the only ones with murals painted on our floodwall. In an article entitled 2000 feet of art in the September/October edition of Our Ohio magazine is the story of the murals in Portsmouth, Ohio. These murals are a continuing work of artist Robert Dafford and, the same as Wellsvilles, depicts the history of Portsmouth. He started his project in 1992. You may be familiar with Mr. Dafford. He is the artist that did 25 murals in downtown Steubenville years ago.

The picture above was copied from the Portsmouth web site. Portsmouth is another Ohio River town in the southern part of the state. Review reporter Holly Stefanoff wrote that Wellsville had the "only functioning floodwall in Ohio" but it appears that is not quite the case. Portsmouth's flood wall is 2o feet high and from what I can see in this picture it is apparently functional when the water level is up.

Portsmouth's mural project got started after a Portsmouth couple saw the murals in Steubenville while visiting there. They went on to form a volunteer group called Portsmouth Murals Inc. that raises money to support the project. They tout it as a tourist attraction. From what I saw in the article and on the web site there are some beautiful and interesting scenes but I like the ville's better. It's our home.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I live in Columbus and work with a woman from Portsmouth. Her and I have discussed the flood wall murals several times and showed each other pictures. From what I have learned from her the two towns seem to be alot alike, with the exception that Portsmouth is bigger.

Anonymous said...

I really like that you say you like ours better because its home.
Cheers to that!