Artist Ian Bode (right) thanks (from left) Erika Connelly, library director for the Kanawha County Public Library; Betty Spencer, president of the Charleston-Institute Chapter of The Links; and Michelle Foster, president and CEO of The Greater Kanawha Valley Foundation after Bode’s artwork (shown here) depicting the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was donated to the library during a March 25, 2024 presentation at the downtown library.
Artist Ian Bode (right) thanks (from left) Erika Connelly, library director for the Kanawha County Public Library; Betty Spencer, president of the Charleston-Institute Chapter of The Links; and Michelle Foster, president and CEO of The Greater Kanawha Valley Foundation after Bode’s artwork (shown here) depicting the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was donated to the library during a March 25, 2024 presentation at the downtown library.
Artwork created by the community was given back to the community Monday at the downtown Charleston branch of the Kanawha County Public Library.
During a Martin Luther King Jr. Day celebration held in January at the city’s Martin Luther King Jr. Community Center, community members helped paint a mural of King surrounded by women. The painting is displayed on the library’s third floor.
The piece — which is a 3-foot-by-4-four-foot acrylic painting — was sponsored by The Greater Kanawha Valley Foundation. It was facilitated by the Charleston-Institute Chapter of The Links, a service organization made up of Black women.
Inspirational women
The idea for the painting came from a photo of women watching King as he spoke, said Michelle Foster, immediate past president of the local Links chapter and current president and CEO of The Greater Kanawha Valley Foundation.
“We really wanted to show that women were involved,” she said.
The piece was donated in honor of Women’s History Month.
Local artist Ian Bode sketched the outline of the painting, and adults and children at the January celebration helped fill in the painting. Bode estimated that more than a hundred people were involved in the painting.
“It was like a paint-by-number without the numbers,” Bode said.
Bode took the painting to his studio to sharpen the lines and move some colors around. He said the painting is “basically ‘as-is,’ the way they painted it.”
“He’s made it look like a million dollars — and it didn’t quite look that way that day — but he’s fixed it up,” said Betty Spencer, current president of the local Links.
Bode has other public art displayed around Charleston, such as the mural on the back of Sam’s Uptown Cafe and several pillars surrounding the skateboard park underneath the Interstate 64 bridge near Kanawha Boulevard.
Representation through art
Erika Connelly, library director for the Kanawha County Public Library, said art at the library is important because it represents the community.
“This [piece] represents a portion of our community and what’s important to them,” she said. “The library is a wonderful place that is able to showcase, I think, representations of the people that live here.”
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