Get into Gaffney

In one of several initiatives to help enliven its charming downtown and celebrate its history and culture, Gaffney, South Carolina’s Visitor Center commissioned Bannan Blasko to create a massive 80’ long by 35’ high mural along its main thoroughfare, Limestone Street. The design focuses on many points of pride for Gaffney, including its revolutionary war significance, historic highway 11, its agriculture, and its educational institutions among other less obvious themes that are strategically hidden within the work so that the piece may reveal itself fully over time. The composition was selected to encourage photography of specific elements in addition to the overall piece, and the many separate elements were united through Sanborn Maps-influenced embellishments and a sunburst motif that occur throughout the piece. A Yoshino cherry tree branch flowers triumphantly across the top of the building, breaking up the geometry of the bottom half of the mural and its windows, visually leading the eye back to the mural’s focal point, the encouraging slogan: “Get into Gaffney.”