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Kim Radford “woke up early and accepted this challenge to restore my favorite mural.”
The Nashville, Tennessee-based artist shared a time-lapse clip on Instagram chronicling of the process to restore her vibrant painting of Dolly Parton. An alleged vandal, who has not been publicly named, was reportedly identified on surveillance footage after he defaced the mural with splatters of black paint. He also apparently vandalized a mural of late singer-songwriter Todd Snider. The 5 Spot, a live music venue in East Nashville where the mural appears, posted a statement in response to the incident. The statement read, in part, that the vandalism “was not done out of hate or anger towards any person, building, lifestyle, or anything. He’s in a bad mental state.”
“This mural of Dolly Parton has my heart and made me a Nashville Muralist in 2020,” Radford said of the Parton mural earlier this ween, promising a “glow up.” On Thursday (August 6), she posted on Instagram: “Woke up early and accepted this challenge to restore my favorite mural. No more black blob! Thank you [The 5 Spot] for lending me your fabulous wall in the heart of 5 points 💕”
Radford — whose celebrity paintings also include Jo Dee Messina, Taylor Swift, Allison Russell, The Red Clay Strays, and many more — posted photos of the mural of Parton that she painted in August 2020. The colorful work of art included the quote, “Of course black lives matter. Do you think our little white a**es are the only ones that matter.”
Parton has not publicly addressed the vandalized mural as of publication time.