New mural by local artist dives into Nelliston's past

“This is the most detail I’ve ever done,” Julia Rodriquez said Saturday.

The project, funded by a $4,000 grant from Saratoga Arts, has been a five-month work-in-progress. As a full-time ophthalmic technician living in Albany, Rodriquez was limited to painting on Saturdays and Sundays.

And that didn’t work out consistently.

“It just seemed the bad weather only came on the weekends and made it really hard to draw,” Rodriquez said.

The results have been seen by a number of southbound passersby on River Road since the piece’s early November completion.

“We’ve had so many compliments on it,” said Nelliston Mayor Debra Gros.

The mural covers centuries of Nelliston’s past, starting with the arrival of Andrew Nellis in the early 1700s. His family was the inspiration behind the village name when it was incorporated in 1878.

Nelliston has claimed fame for cheese production and canalway traffic. It’s also been home to historic figures such as Captain Edward Louis Berthoud, the chief engineer on the Colorado Central Railroad in the 1870s. His image sits front and center in the mural.

Also depicted is Eddie Watt, the present village clerk. Rodriquez explained that this was added to honor his work securing grants for the village.

The mural’s content was coordinated by the Village Board. One of the biggest challenges, Rodriquez said, was working off blurry and colorless reference photos.

“Portraits are so easy to mess up, especially because there’s people who are related to these people,” she said. “They’re coming by looking and I’m hoping I’m doing your relatives justice.”

Rodriguez’s connection to the area runs deep. Gros, who was first elected to the mayoralty in 2019, knew the Fort Plain native before she could walk.

“I used to run a daycare out of my house and so I had her for four or five years until she went to school,” Gros said.

Upon graduating high school in Fort Plain, Rodriguez attended college in Georgia and later Albany. Despite holding a longtime passion for art, she decided to pursue a career in medicine because two of her sisters work in the field.

But on the day of her Medical College Admissions Test in 2020, she bailed and went hiking instead. At that moment, Rodriguez believed that she was giving up on her dreams.

“I had people straight up telling me that I can’t pursue art, I won’t make money and whatever,” Rodriquez said. “And then I became an adult and I realized no one really makes money anyway, so I should just do something that I love.”

Along with the village hall piece, Rodriquez has created murals for the Eisenadler Brauhaus on Main Street and the Albany Institute of History & Art. Her historic piece on River Road is one of her largest and most intricate designs.

She plans on leaving the medical field and moving in January to Charlotte, home of the Talking Walls Mural Festival. The North Carolina city’s public art scene has exploded within the last 20 years.