ABC/Image Group LAThere’s now a mural in Nashville dedicated to Dolly Parton and her support for Black Lives Matter. 

Last week, local artist Kim Radford completed a massive painting of the music icon on a wall of the East Nashville music venue The 5 Spot that shows Dolly surrounded by colorful flowers and her signature symbol, the butterfly.

A day before the mural was completed, Kim came across Dolly’s interview with Billboard in which she voiced her support for Black Lives Matter, stating, “I understand people having to make themselves known and felt and seen. And of course Black lives matter. Do we think our little white a**es are the only ones that matter? No!”

Inspired by Dolly’s support for the movement, Kim incorporated the quote into the piece, on which she was already working, painting “Of course Black Lives Matter” in white lettering above a red butterfly while the remainder of the quote appears on the other end of the mural, hanging over a scene of purple flowers and floating butterflies.  

“It’s like it pokes a hole in all of the frenzy,” Radford told the Nashville paper The Tennessean. “There’s a lot of political friction in the air, and she kind of just decompresses it, once again, like Dolly can do. The timing’s just dreamy.”

By Cillea Houghton 
Copyright © 2020, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.