In living color: From cities to small towns, N.C. muralists are adding culture and color to cultivate community.

• Author: Morman, Ebony

Murals' growing popularity over the past few years makes it nearly impossible to go anywhere in North Carolina without experiencing vibrant artwork from some of the states most creative individuals. Cities and businesses use public art to draw in visitors and customers.

Organizations such as ArtWalks CLT promote murals in Charlotte with guided and self-guided tours. Sanford, a town of 28,000 residents about 40 miles southwest of Raleigh, has a mural art trail, which includes audio tours and grid maps.

Artists behind these large-scale projects say they place an emphasis on community engagement, by sharing unheard stories that highlight a place's history.

Some of North Carolina's most distinctive murals were commissioned and completed by the following artists, who were suggested by local art leaders, state and city arts organizations, and Business North Carolina readers. These creatives can be credited with the North Carolina Musicians Mural project across the state, a mural at Piedmont Triad International Airport in Greensboro and one at the Novant Health Neurosciences Institute in Wilmington, just to name a few.

Scott Nurkin Chapel Hill

Founder of Chapel Hill's The Mural Shop, Scott Nurkin is the brains--and hands--behind hundreds of murals and illustrations. Nurkin's strong North Carolina ties come from growing up in Charlotte and graduating from UNC Chapel Hill. He also has a love for art and music. Alter college, Nurkin had an apprenticeship with muralist Michael Brown at Brown Fine Art Studios in Carrboro, while also touring as a drummer with various bands. The birth of his daughter inspired him to become a muralist full time in 2010.

"Over time, about eight to 10 years, it became less about chasing down jobs and more about answering calls," says Nurkin, 46. "People were finding me because my work was more prolific than ever and I had a lot to show for it."

Nurkin's North Carolina Musicians Mural project combines the two passions and his work now can be experienced in more than a dozen North Carolina cities. The project had humble beginnings when the owner of Chapel Hill's Pepper's Pizza offered Nurkin "free pizza for life" if he would create portraits of renowned musicians on a blank wall inside the restaurant. The mural series has evolved into a bigger-than-life project.

After Peppers closed in 2013, Nurkin expanded the project in partnership with Greg Lowenhagen, a former owner of The Hopscotch Music Festival in Raleigh. Nurkin began to collaborate with the towns these musicians called home.

"The first one that really kind of broke through is Hamlet, which is where (jazz saxophonist and bandleader) John Coltrane is from," he says. "We said this is what we want to do. The manager in that town was really enthusiastic and he loved the idea."

The town owns The Hamlet Opera House, a six-story building with a blank wall. "I said, 'This is where he's got to go,"' says Nurkin. "That was the first one."

One mural in 2007 has turned into 16 completed murals in the hometowns of some of the state's musical giants. Nurkin expects to complete 12 more murals this year.

Murals include the well-known, such as Black Mountain native Robert Flack, who topped the charts in 1973 with "Killing Me Softly With His Song," and the late Earl Scruggs of Shelby, whose three-finger style of banjo playing on songs such as "The Ballad of Jed Clampett" and "Foggy Mountain Breakdown" revolutionized bluegrass...