Public art says a lot about a community.

First, public art is accessible.

It is art for everyone.

It distinguishes a community, reflects its culture and provides a kind of social commentary that can be even more poignant than the written and spoken word.

Public art gives a community context.

It invigorates public spaces, humanizes the town square, decorates its brick and mortar and celebrates both its creators and its subjects.

Communities that showcase public art are communities with pride, committed to progress.

The art often connects us to the past in full celebration of our shared histories.

It can define us, give us identity.

Art is a forum for the freedom of expression and provides unique interpretations and representations of a community, its past, present and perhaps even its future.

Friday evening, Valdosta celebrated its most recent, and arguably most visible, piece of public art — Taylor Shaw’s imposing downtown mural.

We commend Shaw, the Public Art Advisory Committee, Dasher Building owner Sonia Velez, who graciously offered the historic building as a canvas, Jess Ganas from Curate, the City of Valdosta, Valdosta Downtown Main Street, Historic Preservation, Valdosta State University and the Annette Howell Turner Center for the Arts for all they do to incubate and celebrate the arts in our community.

The mural puts our shared histories on full display, memorializes never-to-be-forgotten chapters of our past, highlights our diversity and places the natural beauty all around us on colorful display.

The Valdosta Daily Times, as one of the oldest businesses in this community having served South Georgia for more than 150 years, is proud to call Valdosta our home and proud of the emergence of public art on full display throughout our town.

It is because of that pride in Valdosta and the arts we have published In Plain Sight, a guide to public art in our community. The free publication, beautifully curated and championed by our own Advertising Director Kristi Hill, can be found in local shops, at the arts center, on campus or stop by our office and pick up a few copies. It is our gift to a community, and an arts scene, which we dearly love and for which we are immensely thankful and proud.