Murals by Michael Brown - # - ButterFlites -- Laura Shmania Photography

Laura Shmania Photography

These murals have been painted by Michael Brown over the last 20+ years. Weather, age, and the urban environment have taken their toll on these once colorful and vibrant murals. The Preservation Society of Chapel Hill, the Chapel Hill Downtown Partnership, and the Chapel Hill Historical Society have launched a campaign to preserve them.

Click on each photo for a larger view. To read Michael Brown's description of his creative process, find the photos with "ARTIST'S STATEMENT " in the text. Michael's description is used in this gallery with permission from both Michael Brown and The Chapel Hill News. I hope you will take a stroll through town to see the murals for yourself!

These photos are copyright Laura Shmania-- all rights reserved. Please do not use these images without my written permission. Contact me at :: Laura@ButterFlites.com

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Laura Shmania > Mural artist Michael Brown

Laura Shmania > Mural restoration project of the Preservation Society of Chapel Hill

Laura Shmania > Newly improved! Mural restoration project of the Preservation Society of Chapel Hill

Laura Shmania > Michael Brown, restoring the mural as part of the mural restoration project of the Preservation Society of Chapel Hill.

Laura Shmania > ARTIST'S STATEMENT- Amber Alley - by the Rathskellar Restaurant

The mural at the back of the Amber Alley was painted in 1999. It was called Amber Alley because Theodor Danziger used yellow light bulbs down there to create a romantic “Old quarter/ European” atmosphere outside his Rathskeller restaurant. I remember the yellow light bulbs vividly. I’d eaten there when I was seven years old and, having never eaten in a place with “atmosphere” before, it made quite an impression.

Each year the director of the Downtown Commission (Robert Humphries) would propose a mural location to me, and nearly every year he would first suggest the back of the Amber Alley. The alley was a big problem area for him. Walking from the parking deck the main entrance to Franklin Street was through the alley. It was hard to find, dirty, and with all of its broken windows, crumbling bricks and collapsing ductwork, it looked like an abandoned construction site. I often get jobs because a mural is the only solution for a wall that is just to ugly or expensive to fix, but I had no idea how to deal with all that junk, so year after year I would turn Robert down.

My son was eight, and interested in dinosaurs, so one night we rented the movie Jurassic Park, in which dinosaur DNA is extracted from amber. That is when the idea came to me. A giant amber necklace would certainly be appropriate for the Amber Alley. I could twist it around all the doors, windows and other obstacles and in that way also lead pedestrian’s eyes right down to the alley entrance and hence to Franklin Street. I could imbed symbols of Chapel Hill in the amber, like insects are imbedded in real amber. I included among them a caricature of Dean Smith (he had retired that year, and no I was not implying he was a dinosaur) and a picture of the discontinued downtown trolley service.

Much like the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park I read recently that we may revive the trolley, now running on Bio-diesel, instead of fossil fuel. I hope we can revive some of my work, too.

Mural artist Michael Brown

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