Mickey Adair's Homage to the Artemis Jegart Airport Mural

Throughout her career, Artemis Jegart completed numerous paintings, murals and mosaics. A Florida native, she attended FSU where she earned a bachelor’s and master’s degree in art. After a brief time in Atlanta working as a commercial artist, she returned to Tallahassee where she spent much of her professional life. Her paintings were widely exhibited locally and regionally in invitational and juried shows and they received many awards. In 1956 she was named one of the outstanding new talents in the Unites States by Art in America. She worked primarily in oils and polymer (a plastic medium) and used a style reminiscent of collage. Much of her subject matter was inspired by her surroundings in the Big Bend area.

Jegart had two artworks on display in Tallahassee’s original Municipal Airport. One was an 8’ square mural depicting the Apalachicola National Forest and the other is a 25’ x 40’ mural featuring the “Capitol Center.”

The dedication for the Municipal Airport took place on April 23, 1961 and it remained our community’s main hub for air travel until the Tallahassee Regional Airport was opened on Dec. 3, 1989, a half mile southeast of the previous facility. In 2015, that facility became the Tallahassee International Airport.

Mickey Adair has been working as a fine art photographer and portraitist in Tallahassee for more than 40 years. His series of portraits of famous Americans features well known figures such as Coretta Scott King, Ray Charles, Joyce Carol Oates, Rosa Parks, Muhammad Ali, and many more.

Adair frequented the “old airport,” where he rented planes for aerial photo assignments. He would admire Jegart’s mural, though it was obscured by cubicles after the space no longer serviced passengers. Adair often contemplated how to illuminate and photograph the mural.

In 2005, after buying his first digital camera, Adair and his friend Larry Coltharp were able to successfully light and shoot the mural. Adair photographed individual portions of the painting and later “stitched” them together using Photoshop software. The resulting 5′ x 15′ high resolution composite image took 10 hours to print onto vinyl.

A suspended ceiling has been installed in the space, obscuring the top portion of the artwork. Adair’s image is the only large-scale digital representation of the work. “It needs to find a new home. It belongs at the airport,” Adair asserts.

“The mural is very beautiful and I’m proud of the city for commissioning this artist to create such a lovely rendition of Tallahassee. There’s an image of a jet airplane in it and it’s announcing the dawn of the jet age in Tallahassee. It’s one of our earliest examples of public art in this town.”

Adair’s photo composite of Jegart’s mural will be on display in the Observation Room on the second floor of the Tallahassee International Airport until August 19, 2019. The first 30 minutes of parking is free for both the short-term parking lot.

The exhibition is one of many curated by the Council on Culture & Arts on behalf of the City of Tallahassee as part of the Art in Public Places program.