Exterior Acrylic Paint Hand-Brushed on Brick

Roxy Erickson’s Orchard Picnic is a 60 X 18 foot mural on the west exterior wall of a 1936 C.L. George poultry hatchery in downtown Springdale that explores the symbols associated with the building’s current inhabitants, Black Apple Cider and intertwines them with the early history of Springdale.

The viewer finds themself in front of an Ozark orchard filled with blackberries, raspberries, cardinals, and apples– all of which symbolize the Black Apple Cider brand and its roots within the land and community. A woman enjoys herself throughout this fantastical scene. To the left, she watches a cardinal through binoculars; in the center, she admires the Arkansas Black apple she has just picked, and she enjoys the fruits of her harvest on a classic picnic blanket in the distant right. This Ozark orchard combines a setting of yesteryear with today’s

sensibilities.

During the early 1900s, Benton and Washington counties were the largest producers of apples in the entire nation, and many surrounding communities grew strong around this industry. The apple was so important to the state’s economy that its blossom was memorialized as the state flower. The white and pink blooms make many appearances throughout the mural along with echinacea, a cheerful perennial native to Arkansas and spotted in lawns and wildlands across the state. The Arkansas Black apple, the brand’s namesake, is notable for its exceptional dark coloration whose deep burgundy turns nearly black after being stored in the cold. Legend has it that a man named John Crawford cultivated Arkansas Black apples in the 1840s. The variety accounted for nearly twenty percent of the state’s apple production by the 1900s, but between disease and the Great Depression, the Arkansas Black apple variety declined in popularity. The apple and its flower remain a symbol of pride for the Ozarks and its history.

The woman who serenely moves throughout the mural inspires the viewer to reflect on individual and collective pasts alongside the present and future.Erickson’s emphasis on location invites an internal exploration of all the places we inhabit, both real and imagined. Like our central figure, we create and move throughout our own narratives of memory, history, and place. How often do we pause to watch, harvest, and enjoy the delights of these places?

Roxy Erickson is a visual artist currently based in Centerton, Arkansas. She attended high school in New Delhi, India, then graduated with her bachelors inpainting from Savannah College of Art and Design in 2012 and masters in Fine Art from the San Francisco Art Institute in 2015. She has shown work in NYC, CA, GA, AK, and France. Erickson currently has several large scale murals in Northwest Arkansas.