Mark Twain mural installed in downtown Carson City

Mark Twain has returned to Carson City in the form of a mural. A massive portrait of the literary icon was installed on the south-facing wall of the Nevada State Museum on Wednesday.

Pictured with the author’s portraiture is a frog — a nod to one of Twain’s short stories — and some background books. Ely resident and artist Jamie Vincek, 36, was commissioned by Visit Carson City for $10,000 to complete the mural. She told the Appeal she read Twain in grade school but was just learning about his life and work.

“I’ve never painted this big of a person before,” she said. “I was really intrigued.”

Vincek used acrylic paints on six aluminum panels. They were installed together Wednesday on one of the museum’s walls facing Robinson Street, not on the historic Mint building. They were installed in time for the upcoming Mark Twain Days Festival, which runs April 21 to 23 in downtown Carson with a variety of free events.

Debra Soule, the arts and culture program manager at Visit Carson City who spearheaded the festival, said the tourist organization has been talking about historic murals in the city for a while. She pointed out the festival’s vendor market will be in the parking lot adjacent to the museum and the mural.

“There will be a lot of people taking this in,” she said.

Soule said Visit Carson City was ecstatic when the museum approved the location for the mural. The museum will also be participating in the festival by minting a special Mark Twain medallion available to the public.

Museum Director Josh Bonde said Wednesday the job of the museum is to educate and inspire people. He said the new mural does exactly that.

“It’s an honor to have his imagery on the museum here,” he said.

Besides the artist’s own signature, the mural does include an inscription saying, “Yours dreamily, Mark Twain.” It’s the same phrase Twain used in an 1863 letter from Carson City, when he used his pen name for the first time.

For information about the festival, visit https://visitcarsoncity.com/mark-twain-days/.