Driving by the Opera House, you may have observed a burst of color along the back wall of the parking lot. Artist Dan Neilsen of Bayville and Hopkinton, New Hampshire began work on the wall, once the foundation of the Strand Theater, in July after it was smoothed out by Marden Construction.

His colorful imagery incorporates music and the Boothbay Harbor region history in acrylics and mosaic and porcelain tile after several months of design work early this year.

Opera House board member Mark Spencer has known Neilsen since he was very young because both families have summered in Bayville for a few decades. Spencer, knowing Neilsen was an artist, decided to tell him about the potential palette in the parking lot.

“That’s all I did, really,” Spencer said. “I joined the board two years ago and we had talked about a mural for that wall. I threw the idea out to him, because I knew he had done murals before, and the next thing I knew Dan had gone over to see Cathy with a sketch ... and it's turned out to be something really special. He’s an amazing artist.”

In addition to Spencer, Nielsen's mom, Andrea Neilsen, stopped by the Opera House while Executive Director Cathy Sherrill was outside changing the marquee. “She mentioned that her son was visiting and was interested in painting a mural and showed me a small photo on her phone of an idea that Dan had that was very cool – not the scene that he’s painting, but it was fantastic. Eventually, Dan settled on the concept you see. And now we are all excited to see it as it evolves.”

Sherrill recalled the first of Neilsen’s drawings she’d seen before meeting him in June was of a guitar with a very long neck, that was the footbridge, with houses along it.

“As soon as I saw his idea I knew he was the artist we’d been looking for – we’d been talking about getting a local artist to paint a mural for a few years but it just hadn’t moved ahead, there was either no interest, no time, no idea,” she said, adding: “Apparently we were waiting for Dan but didn’t know it.”

Neilsen’s final, yet often evolving, vision brings a violin-stringed wharf stretching across the harbor on the right. Moving left on the wharf, and following the violin strings, you travel through a grove of pines trees straight to the bow atop a high rock with more coming into focus:  3-D mackerel and osprey, and the Nellie G. Neilsen plans to add Schooner Eastwind, and along the wharf, Footbridge House with other businesses past and present.

In addition to these 3-D effects, the Nellie G, sketched out to the left of the violin bow, will be composed of porcelain mosaic tiles, pencil liner tiles, and vitreous glass. Neilsen is mixing his own mortar for the tiles he said will be used in other areas of his vast palette such as the wharf pilings.

Once all is completed, Neilsen will apply a coat of protective clear acrylic followed by one of varnish.

The Bard College graduate said this is his first large-scale mural. "It's exciting and, it's funny, overwhelming, too," he said. "I have to finish it before I can get really jazzed." 

Sherrill said Neilsen is donating all materials as well as his talent.

“This summer, every day has been a truly fantastic surprise, from the fish rising up off the wall to the long-necked fiddle stretching across the sea, it’s magical and already my favorite street art, anywhere,” said Sherrill. “This is a really spectacular community art piece. It could be in a gallery but it’s here for all to see.”