How could someone do such a thing to Dolly?
A business in East Nashville recently had to deal with a Dolly Parton mural being vandalized. It was on August 3 when the famous piece of art – painted by Kim Radford – on the side of The 5 Spot in East Nashville had paint thrown all over it. The culprit took a small jar of black pigment and tossed it right up on the nose of the vibrant and colorful Dolly Parton.
There was also a Todd Snider mural that was defaced as well.
The neighboring business to The 5 Spot – Hip Zipper Nashville – caught the whole thing on camera. Little did the culprit know, security cameras were facing the mural, and soon after the vandalization happened, the footage of the person who did it was all over social media.
The 5 Spot asked for help identifying the person who did it:
@blessthismesshqBusted! Security camera posted by @hipzippernashville shows a vandal splash paint on a Dolly Parton mural on a side wall of @the5spotnashville. The incident happened at 9:52 a.m. Monday, Aug. 3.
Just hurts my heart seeing a beautiful painting of the “Queen of Country Music” being splashed with black paint like that.
The East Nashville community quickly worked to identify the person who was responsible, and The 5 Spot found out rather quickly who did it. Instead of escalating the situation, the Nashville business decided to speak with the individual, and they shared this update later on August 3:
“We know who defaced the Dolly and Todd Snider murals. He’s explained himself. It was not done out of hate or anger towards any person, building, lifestyle, or anything. He’s in a bad mental state. The muralist will be back to clean it up. The latex paint might peel off. Thanks for getting us in touch with him.”
Since the mural features a quote from Dolly about “Black Lives Matter,” it seems like they might have assumed that had something to do with the motivation for the vandalism, however based on the statement above, it appears that isn’t the case.
Very cool of The 5 Spot to take the high road and show some grace.
Kim Radford, the artist who pained the mural that she says made her a “Nashville muralist,” was very saddened to see her work of art defaced. She says it takes a lot of work to get the face right on murals, and knows that correcting the issue that the black paint has caused will take time.
Radford is hoping she can get the mural fixed up by this weekend, and had this to say to the person who vandalized the art work that means so much to her and the East Nashville community, according to WKRN:
“It’s a really childish, stupid thing to do… (to steal) something really pretty and valuable.”
The owner of The 5 Spot says that he doesn’t plan on pressing charges, and wishes that people who do things like vandalizing art work could get the help that they need rather than allow their emotions to get the best of them.
You can hear more about the Dolly Parton mural being vandalized in the video below:
