Martha Ferris thanks Vicksburg residents for their support during a dedication ceremony for the mural Friday. (The Vicksburg Post/C. TODD SHERMAN)

[06/04/01] It started with a bare wall, a quiet railroad track, the Yazoo Diversion Canal and Martha Ferris.

Three months and a city board vote later, Vicksburg has a mural on the flood wall at City Front.

The mural by Ferris, an artist and Vicksburg native, was dedicated by state and city officials in a ceremony on Levee Street Friday.

Ferris said she first envisioned the painting, a bright collection of fantastic scenes of life along the Mississippi River, while standing alone at City Front in March.

“It all came to me then at the river and the railroad tracks,” Ferris said. “I was really impressed by the confluence of those two things, how they express our culture.”

Ferris has decorated the flood wall with designs of the old Levee Street train depot, the Vicksburg Harbor, tree-studded pastures and cotton fields, arranged around a bright blue string that represents the Mississippi River.

“It’s not my wall anymore,” Ferris said. “It’s our wall.”

Ferris’ colors are unique in an area dominated by gray and rust-colored walls. And her free-flowing style has caused some onlookers to think outside the box of the painting’s subject, Ferris said. One observer, she said, thought a cotton field at a river bend was Casper the Friendly Ghost. Another thought a casino in the painting was a birthday cake.

Elizabeth Pajerski, a Vicksburg artist, said the mural spices up the floodwall.

“I like color, and I like motion,” Pajerski said. “It has a lot of both.”

Vicksburg’s Board of Mayor and Aldermen commissioned Ferris to design the mural in April, selecting her design over 10 others submitted by artists from around Mississippi.

Assisted by Michael “Tee” Woody, an art student at the University of Southern Mississippi, and landscaper Synethia Kelly, Ferris completed her work on May 25, more two months ahead of schedule.

Ferris’ design was chosen by a 2-1 vote by the city board, with South Ward Alderman Sam Habeeb voting no.

Habeeb said Ferris’ design didn’t represent the image of Vicksburg that tourists and others should see. He said the mural doesn’t mesh well with the designs of buildings in downtown Vicksburg.

“I’m not against the art. I’m against where it was placed,” said Habeeb, who registered his dissent again by not attending the dedication ceremony. “It’s just not Vicksburg. It would fit in better in L.A.”

But Vicksburg Mayor Robert Walker said the painting is part of a plan he and other city board members have designed for downtown.

“We want to lessen the distance between downtown and the river,” Walker said. “Martha Ferris’ mural symbolizes our desire to revitalize this area and give it back the life it once had.”