Bolin Creek Trail concrete pipes to be redecorated by local muralists

When Triangle-based muralist Mayanthi Jayawardena saw the call for Chapel Hill Community Arts and Culture's Bolin Creek Trail pipe mural project earlier this year, she knew it was something she needed to be a part of — she had been wanting to do it for years. 

The pipes along the greenway became a familiar sight to her during the COVID-19 pandemic. New to the area, Jayawardena spent a lot of time on the trails admiring the painted structures. Now, she and five other local artists will be the ones decorating them with their murals. 

“This is perfect,” Jayawardena said. “There's something about that artwork, so seamlessly integrating with nature that I'm really drawn to.”

Steve Wright, public art coordinator for the Town of Chapel Hill, said that 20 of the pipe structures along the greenway, stretching from Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard to Franklin Street, will be painted with murals later this year as part of the project. 

The pipes are underground access structures owned by Orange Water and Sewer Authority. While the town has done similar art projects with them since 2020, Wright said that some of the artwork on the pipes hasn't been updated since the early 2000s. 

But with some sizable funding from the Parks and Recreation department, the upcoming project will be the biggest batch of murals yet, giving the pipes a fresh coat of paint and a new life.

After responding to the the call to artists earlier this year, the final six, including Jayawardena, were selected in the spring, each with their own share of the project's pipes. While the artists have not yet began installing their murals as they wait for a paint primer to be applied, Wright said that he hopes for the project to be completed by around Thanksgiving. 

Besides beautifying the structures, Wright said that the project will help better harmonize the concrete pipes with the natural area surrounding the trail.  

For the pipes that Jayawardena is painting, she said that she is going to include different indigenous plants and animals of the area, with “little nuggets” of design around the back of the pipes, not in view while on the trail.

“You never know who's going to explore and wander out that way,” Jayawardena said. 

Illustrator, author and muralist Jesse White is also including native wildlife in her murals. White, who studied printmaking and drawing at UNC, said that her work in children's illustration inspired her to take a narrative approach to the project, using her three pipes to tell a story about a barred owl and beech tree. 

She said that the story, which depicts the owl and the tree supporting each other throughout their life cycles, can be understood in both directions people come from on the trail. Her work, which includes other murals and public art in Chapel Hill, often seeks to spark curiosity about the natural environment. 

“I think that the more that we can do to get people outside and enjoying nature — and not just enjoying it, but thinking a bit more thoughtfully or carefully about our relationship to the natural world — is really important,” White said. 

Wright said that not everywhere has such a great community of local artists like Chapel Hill. He called projects like these nice opportunities for local artists to share their talents and artistic visions.

Artist Sarah Lasater would agree. Her murals, which will depict native plants, bugs and pollinators, will be her first piece of public art. She has been in Chapel Hill for three years, and said that she wants to be more involved artistically in the place that she's living — a community that she said feels like home.

“So that's really exciting for me to feel like I'm just a part of my community and sharing educational art, but also something that's quite vibrant and fun that kind of stands out from the surrounding nature, but also is celebrating it,” Lasater said. 

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