photo by: Emma Delk

A new mural is born from a collaboration between local artist Rachel Goodman, pictured, and Sarah’s on Main owner Sarah Lydick. Lydick explained she chose Goodman for the job because of her previous work designing the restaurant’s logo.

Asparagus, carrots, rhubarb and more have begun to grow across Sarah’s on Main’s patio wall as a new mural funded by the Wheeling Arts and Culture Commission will soon be finished.

The process for the mural began when Sarah Lydick, owner of the 2122 Main St. restaurant, came across a post on Facebook advertising the Wheeling Arts & Cultural Commission’s Mural Project. Seeing that her restaurant met all the qualifications for the grant, she contacted local artist and designer Rachel Goodman for the project.

Loving Goodman’s “bold and colorful” art style, Lydick explained that the artist immediately entered her mind for the job. The two are also frequent collaborators, as Goodman had previously designed the restaurant’s logo and held art shows there.

On the style of the mural, Goodman knew she immediately wanted to make it in an “art nouveau-ish style” because it followed the “common thread” that she began with the logo design.

“The ultimate inspiration for the mural design came from the idea of Paris in the 1890s, where everything was excessive and beautiful,” explained Goodman. “Art nouveau was about celebrating beauty, which is what my initial concept was very much about.”

Once she decided on the style of the mural, Goodman chose to cover the wall in fruits, vegetables and flowers, joking that “carrots are key” to the design. The artist added she wanted to “take things a step further” and chose to depict produce and flowers that “only could be grown in this climate.”

While Goodman has done mural work before, she has never taken on a project this large, admitting she was “a little bit out of her comfort zone” before she began painting. However, once she got to work, she said she threw her original pre-drawings “out the window” and decided to take a more spontaneous approach to the design.

Goodman, left, and Lydick, right, stand in front of the mural in progress at the restaurant in Center Wheeling.

“I just started to do something really colorful and whimsical with the design as I began painting,” said Goodman. “I’m still incorporating the art nouveau style, adding swirls and stuff around the produce and flowers.”

With such an abundance of design ideas and plenty of space to fill, Goodman’s painting process will be about a month long. The artist predicts she will finish the mural in “the middle of September.”

A day-on-the-wall painting is not easy work, as Goodman often paints from sunrise to sundown in the middle of the summer heat. However, the artist said she is “not fazed” by the long and hot days, as she believes all of her “sanity and personality” comes from the work she does painting.

“This doesn’t feel like work to me because it’s part of who I am,” said Goodman. “I get home after a day working on the mural, and I haven’t even realized how much I miss my family because I’ve been so immersed in my work.”

The one difficult part of the job for Goodman was standing on scaffolding to paint the higher sections of the wall.

“The height doesn’t look scary from the ground, but when you get up there, it’s pretty terrifying,” admitted Goodman. “The higher you get, the rig begins to shake, and if the wind blows, it can be a pretty frightening combination.”

Apart from some scary moments in the scaffolding, Goodman says once she gets in the flow of painting, she has had “a lot of fun” creating the mural. She is also thrilled that her work on the mural will beautify Wheeling for “years to come.”

“As I’m painting, I’m thinking about how this art is going to be here forever, when I’m gone and even when Sarah’s on Main isn’t here,” said Goodman. “It feels like I’m giving a gift to the city, but the city is also giving me the gift of a canvas.”

Goodman is also happy that the city has begun “embracing public art,” as she believes that is the one area that Wheeling is lacking as an already “very artistic city.”

Lydick is also thankful for the Wheeling Arts and Cultural Commission for “putting aside the funds” to fill the city with murals.

“I just love this patio space out here, and we are always trying to figure out ways to make it better,” said Lydick. “I love that this is going to attract people from the road and bring their eyes back here.”