July 14, 2020
By: Dwayne Page
DeKalb County is known for tourist attractions such as Center Hill Lake and the Smithville Fiddlers’ Jamboree and Crafts Festival and those scenes are captured in a “Welcome to Smithville” mural which will soon be completed on the exterior west wall of the Gayla C. Hendrix Law Office building on the public square.
Hendrix came up with the idea for the mural and turned to local artist Scott Shaw to create the design.
“I had been wanting to do one on my building for a long time and then one day I was at the Button Willow General Store and Coffee Shop on Main Street and Scott was working on their mural. When I saw what he was creating I thought this is exactly what I have been wanting to do on my building so I got his business card and contacted him. I was super excited to find somebody to do the kind of work I was wanting. I already had this design in my mind. I wanted the lake. I wanted to incorporate Jamboree musicians. On the bottom right corner will be a lady story teller reading a book to a child and on the bottom left corner the mural will show an older gentleman whittling, a long ago pastime of many around the public square. I wanted all those things incorporated into the mural so I gave Scott the ideas of what I wanted and he drew up the design. Scott works at Federal Mogul so he gets to work on my building when he has time off but it will be finished soon,” said Hendrix.