Spencer Bennett
Untitled No. 8913
Short Pump, Henrico County, 2025
Mixed media (acrylic and pavement coating) on cast concrete
On view
Short Pump Park, 3329 Pump Road, Henrico, Virginia
Henrico County holds a collection of maps and photographs going back more than 400 years.
For years the county showed some of that history in Short Pump Park, on printed panels
fixed to three curved concrete walls. The panels covered the Native people who lived here
first, the local schools, and the history of Short Pump itself. They lifted at the edges, and the county took them down. The walls stood bare.
The walls stand outdoors in a public park, and people walk all the way around them.
Anything on them has to take sun, rain, and people touching them. The county had paid for one set of panels already and watched it fail.
The county asked me to repair the walls and put the history back, and handed me those maps
and photographs to work from.
The new mural is paint, not panels. I painted every picture straight onto the
concrete, on the front, the back, both ends, and the top, so there is nothing to peel.
I sorted the images into the same three subjects the old panels had covered, one subject
per wall. People see each wall from every side, so its pictures had to work as a group from
any direction. No photographs survive from the earliest period, so I painted that wall from
old maps and engravings. I painted the other two walls to look like the old photographs they
came from, grain and soft focus included.
Before painting, I stripped what was left of the old panels, repaired the concrete, and put
on two coats of primer. I used exterior acrylic and sealed it under two clear anti-graffiti coats, so
vandalism washes off.
A map of the land the park sits on covers the concrete slab between the walls, white on
black. It shows who owned each property years ago.
The park also holds a museum, the 1902 schoolhouse, open by appointment. The walls are the
outdoor one. I finished them in 2025, and they stay open whenever the park is.