The Mural: A tribute to Hoover
October 30, 2004
Kelli Young, Canton Repository
NORTH CANTON: It’s almost finished. Now if the weather would just cooperate.
David Campbell, a 1972 Hoover graduate now living in Georgia, has spent at least five weeks painting a 52-foot-by-18-foot high mural depicting Hoover High School sports on the east side of the North Canton Tire building at 206 Schneider St. SE.
He began painting in August, starting with the blue sky and white cloud background. Then he drew nephew Kyle Adams, clad in his No. 33 Hoover High School football uniform.
“He’s not one of the more famous people to come out of Hoover, but he is one of the hardest-working, so I thought he deserved it,” said Campbell of Adams, who is a senior.
Next came the basketball, volleyball, bowling ball, stopwatch, lacrosse stick, hockey stick, megaphone, soccer ball and more.
“I used about $1,300 worth of paint on it,” Campbell said.
All that needs to be done is a clear coat of varnish to seal it. But when Campbell came back to Ohio this week, it rained. He’s hoping the varnish can be applied Sunday.
“But it has to be at least 60 degrees,” Campbell said with a laugh.
The idea for a mural on the Goodyear dealer’s building came from its employees, who saw a large empty wall after the company changed the roofing on the building.
They had to paint it anyway, said Matthew Moore, general manager for North Canton Tire.
“We asked him to do it because this town is so involved with their high school sports, and we wanted to show our support,” Moore said.
Campbell, who does commercial illustrations for advertisements and books, said a sales representative asked him to paint the tire building after seeing a mural he painted in his brother-in-law’s home. This is the first mural Campbell has painted outside.
“I was constantly concerned about the weather, because I grew up in Ohio and I knew how the weather can change,” Campbell said. He plotted his painting days around weather forecasts, not always successfully. “In Atlanta, you can watch the Weather Channel and you can see the rain coming from Alabama and could count on it. But here, it seems the rain would dissipate when it came to Canton, and a couple of days I could have painted.”
The rainy weather did cause some problems, Campbell said. At one time, the mural’s paint actually bubbled up.
“I was a little panicked when I saw that 60 to 100 bubbles on the mural,” he said. “I called for technical support, and they told me that it was OK and to let the water evaporate.”
He said that after he adds the clear varnish, the paint shouldn’t bubble again.
Campbell said his murals can cost anywhere from $12,000 to $20,000, but he did this one for ‘a little less.’
“I had a personal reason for wanting to do this one,” he said.
And it shows. Campbell added a personal memento to the right side of the mural: a small orange-and-yellow square dedicated to the memory of Ty Palmer, Campbell’s high school art teacher.
“They had a big reception for him (before he died),” Campbell explained. “A lot of students came back to see him, but I wasn’t able to come back. I missed that and I always felt bad, because if it weren’t for him, I may not have pursued an art career.”
NETWORK
Hoover Vikings Football
Hoover Vikings Football
Tribute to Hoover Vikings
