Vandalized mural restored

By Mark Shaffer
The Ironton Tribune

On Saturday, artist Sean Kelley was at the Ironton floodwall again on Saturday morning.
This time he wasn’t working on one of his murals, rather he was making the Ironton-Lawrence County Memorial Day Parade mural look like it did before it was vandalized on Oct. 12.
The vandal spray painted “SJ (hearts) CM,” “CM+SJ” and “Scott+Chels!” on an unpainted section of the floodwall and on the mural itself, the person spray painted a heart with “S+C” and then used a marker to write “Scott+Chelsey.” “I (heart) You and a date of “10-12-24” in the American Flag on the parade mural.
Kelley said he had some free time and told Lou Pyles, one of the Ironton-Lawrence County Memorial Day Parade organizers that if the group bought the paint, he would do his best to make it look good again.
“This wasn’t a big job, it was just a quick fix,” he said. “It doesn’t look too bad. I’m not an airbrush artist, so I can’t make it look exactly like it did before but it looks pretty good.”
To the untrained eye, it was hard to tell that the mural had been vandalized.
Kelley used white paint to cover the spray paint graffiti on the concrete floodwall.
“Later, I’m going to extend the (red, white and blue) ribbon that runs along the wall,” Kelley said. “That’s the most logical thing to do, that ribbon ties the whole floodwall together.”
He said it was probably too late to paint the ribbon this year because of the cooler weather and how it affects the paint.
The mural was originally painted by Patty Shively in 2006. In 2017, Tracy McKenzie, owner of Extreme Kustom Paint, repainted it after a decade of fading.
Kelley was none too impressed by the vandal’s graffiti.
“I saw it and thought ‘That graffiti sucks,” he said. “If you are going to do graffiti, do something good and cool. And do it under a bridge or something. Don’t leave your name. If you are going to put it out there, it better be awesome.”
Kelley said that most graffiti artists don’t put their tag on someone else’s artwork, especially if it is historical or means a lot to the community.
“This parade has been going on for 156 years, so this is very dear to the community’s heart,” Kelley said. “And writing on the flag, is just wrong. Don’t do it on art, it’s not cool. Especially art that people have paid for.”
The Ironton Police Department is continuing its investigation into the vandalism.

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