Conversation Starter

Forthcoming coffee table book takes a deeper dive into the Mending Walls mural project.

It started as a public art initiative, then it became a podcast and the subject of an Emmy-winning PBS documentary. Now Richmond’s acclaimed Mending Walls mural project will be documented in an expansive coffee table book.

“The podcast and documentary were deep dives. This is an even deeper dive,” says artist Hamilton Glass, the founder of the unique project that first saw 16 different murals rendered citywide by Richmond artists of different colors and backgrounds working in pairs; a project inspired by the rallies and protests that followed George Floyd’s murder.

Through these large wall paintings, Glass says, the painters had “authentic conversations” about race relations and social justice.

“The book won’t just be photos of the work, it will include the voices of the artists and facts about the process, and what happened while the artists were painting. It’s a way to enjoy the project through another medium.” Plus, he adds, “it documents a dynamic time when the artists were painting while people were still protesting in the streets.”

“Mending Walls: A Healing Art Project” will be issued in April by NoHow Books, a new publishing imprint from former Chop Suey Books owner Ward Tefft. “I’m extremely happy with how the book turned out,” says Tefft. “I think it’s an accurate representation of what those murals mean both in spirit and in artistic value.”

While operating the Carytown bookstore, Tefft published seven titles under the imprint, Chop Suey Books Books. One of those was “Murals of Richmond” by Michael Broth, a survey of existing street art that offered inspiration for the new tome.

“I talked to Ward early in 2020 about this,” Glass recalls. “He was interested and excited in the process and the meaning behind Mending Walls. To him, it wasn’t just a book to sell. Having already published a mural book and having experience selling it here in Richmond, he knows what people want from a public art book.”

“Mending Walls: A Healing Art Project” will feature details about all of the participating artists — including the likes of Ed Trask, Jowarnise Caston, Matt Lively, Heide Trepanier and Glass himself — and offer special QR codes that link to supplementary material about the works and collaborations. “This will take the reader further into each mural,” Tefft says, “It will lead them to different websites and links, so it’s an expansive thing that extends beyond just the book.”

Glass and Tefft both give credit to editors Sara Marsden and Katrina Taggart-Hecksher for shaping the work into a handsome, 180-page compendium. “We set it up so that it wasn’t just the origin story of year one of Mending Walls, but something that would help keep the conversation going,” says Taggart-Hecksher, who helped to design the book with Marsden and took many of the photographs of murals along with Brenda Soque.

Glass says that he didn’t originally envision “Mending Walls” as a print concern, but then project planners started to get invitations from teachers to come speak at local schools such as Barack Obama Elementary and St. Catherine’s School, and at colleges like Penn State and University of Richmond.

“The motivation behind the book is really the educational aspects it has to offer,” he explains. “We found out teachers were interested in, and starting to use, some of the collaborative processes that we were using for the project. We thought a book like this would be really valuable as an educational tool.”

Why has this project had such resonance? “There are no parameters,” Glass says of the initiative, which has continued with new mural collaborations, the last one in 2022. “And protecting the authentic conversations that the artists were having with each other and their work has been of the utmost importance.”

“Mending Walls: A Healing Art Project” will be available at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, World of Mirth and Chop Suey Books, among other outlets. Pre-orders are being taken at nohowbooks.com. For more information on Mending Walls, and to hear episodes of the MW podcast, go to mendingwallsrva.com

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