Magnificent Mural

They go back to a time when most everyone on Marco Island knew each other. So it was an easy decision when local attorney Fred Kramer decided he wanted a mural for his 18-hole mini-golf enterprise Marco Golf and Garden at 971Winterberry Drive. He called his old friend Tara O’Neill, a well-known artist whose studio is on Goodland.

"I've known Tara and her family since, well, for over 40 years,” Fred Kramer said. “It was a small island 40 years ago. There weren't that many lawyers and there weren't that many families of ten kids.”

The O’Neills came to the island in the 1960s. In the 1970s, you couldn’t go anywhere without running into one of the O’Neill kids. There’s still a few of them around the island.

As for the mural, Kramer decided to make a scar a star, turning an uninspiring blank wall into a thing of beauty.

"We had the wall there with nothing on it,” Kramer said. "And I've seen murals that really work in public spaces. Art's really good for the community. And Tara is the one I thought of to work on it. She's exceptional."

O’Neill was happy to accommodate her old friend.

"I got excited when Fred kept stressing bright colors,” Tara O’Neill said. "You don't see a lot of that on Marco, I don't think. But I love this brilliant palette. And then he pretty much gave me free rein. We had a couple of meetings and he'd have pictures of things. He actually had a picture of an old clawfoot bathtub, and voila. Next thing that went right into my head was, 'Oh, you mean like for a snail?’ He was like, ‘Okay.' He gave me a lot of free rein, which I thoroughly appreciate. He was very respectful that way.”

O’Neill turned to another longtime islander, Matt Purdy, to paint the background. Purdy is a local painter.

"Matt Purdy’s been an island resident for over 50 years,” O’Neill said. "And he's a great painter. Obviously, I'm not getting up on those ladders and scaffolding. So for Matt to come and paint background for us was great. I liked the nice islander teamwork. I think we succeeded there. "