Opossums and tigers and bears, oh my!

In Lenoir, a tiger’s golden amber eyes peer through a bush of white flowers, watching cars and walkers make their way up Boundary Street. A few blocks away, an opossum clutches the opening of a burrow with pink hands as a trio of its babies peek over its shoulders.

The murals are part of a citywide “Paint It Forward” initiative, a project that the Downtown Lenoir Development Alliance (DLDA) said “aims to inspire creativity, tell our community’s story, and create welcoming spaces for residents and visitors alike.”

Glenda Wilson, the president of the DLDA board, explained that the collection of electrical box murals began as suggestions that kept resurfacing across multiple meetings. They just needed somebody to start it, she said.

“What we see is it brings people to the area to look at them,” Wilson explained. “In that way, hopefully it brings people here, then they’ll go into our businesses and they’ll spend money, and it will help our economy. With the art that Lenoir already has with the sculptures, Tucker’s Gallery, and everything, it’s just an addition.”

Wilson took the helm and the city formed an 11-person committee, which then held a public survey at the Christmas Market in November 2025 and received a great response.

After a few legal wrinkles and delays in funding, the city put out a request for artists to submit bios and a few samples of their work. Of the 20 that submitted, the committee chose four and started Phase One. Another five were commissioned to paint boxes around town in Phase Two.

“We gave them longer to do them because of the weather, the extreme heat we’ve been having, the rain and all that stuff,” Wilson said. “By the middle of September, we should have all those done.”

Emily Amado, the artist who painted the tiger on Boundary, said that although the heat could be brutal, unless it was raining, she got out to paint.

“It feels like it’s adding a lot to downtown,” she said of the initiative. “I like seeing people drive by and smile at the pictures. I really appreciate downtown for embracing their local artists. We’re in a day and age where generative artwork and AI is really big. It’s nice to see local artists’ real artwork showcased like this.”

Amado explained that her tiger was an oddity among the artists, because the city actually requested that she reproduce the tiger from art she had made in a high school art class, using the same pointillism technique she had used in the piece.

To copy the dotted style of her originally-marker-made feline, Amado used a circular sponge and Nova Color paints, a paint brand Amado said was made specifically for fine art, large-scale murals that can withstand the elements.

According to Wilson and Amado, the other artists were asked to submit their ideas for their electrical boxes, and the committee often chose the locations of art specifically based on subject matter.

A black bear, painted by Sherry Reese, picks a basket of blackberries at the corner of Main Street and Ash Avenue, an entrance to Lenoir’s annual Blackberry Festival.

The opossum and babies greet walkers where Main Street and Harper Avenue meet. The owner of Fercott Fermentables loves the species and was a big proponent of getting the murals going, and she passes it every day, Wilson said.

“Emily’s (tiger) is because you sneak up on it,” Wilson explained. “That corner seemed to call to it.”

There is the potential for a Phase Three, Wilson explained, but the committee hasn’t fully decided if it will move forward with two more artists or continue on to a larger project.

“Those are what I like to call low-hanging fruit — a way to get the project started that didn’t cost a fortune,” Wilson explained. “It got people looking at it, input from it, (excitement) and everything.”

The DLDA put up $5,000 in seed money to start the project, which was followed by a $5,000 grant from the Lenoir Tourism Development Authority (TDA). According to Wilson, the TDA grant will serve as a reimbursement for the $5,000 DLDA contributed, paving the way for potential future mural projects.

The next goal, she said, is finding a building that can serve as a larger backdrop for a mural. The “Paint It Forward” initiative provides the city with examples of previous projects and investments, which open the doors for further grants and future art lining the streets.