DC Artist Honored For 'Paint The Town' Mural On Garage In Bethesda

BETHESDA, MD — Montgomery County held a dedication ceremony Wednesday morning to honor Jah One, an artist who painted a mural on the façade of the Montgomery County Parking Garage on Old Georgetown Road in Bethesda.

The mural is the fifth installment of Bethesda’s “Paint the Town,” an initiative to promote public art murals in downtown Bethesda.

The mural by Jah One, a Washington, D.C., artist, was selected out of nearly 50 mural artists who submitted applications to do the mural.

Jah One started painting murals five years ago, and his murals are now located in D.C., Chicago, Minneapolis, Detroit, Atlanta and Miami. The new mural in Bethesda, entitled “New Day,” is a portrait of his mother as a way of celebrating her.

According to Jah One, “Too often we honor people when they aren’t around to hear it. In a more relatable way, New Day, is about us coming out of a long historical pandemic. We lost a lot, and much has changed forever. Hopefully we spent our time in isolation thinking about what’s truly important to us and now we are focused on those things with a new, more grateful perspective on the future.”

The mural was sponsored by the Bethesda Urban Partnership (BUP) and the Bethesda Arts & Entertainment District, as well as the Montgomery County Department of Transportation and the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission.

“I am proud of the work MCDOT is doing to enrich the County landscape through the arts,” Montgomery County Executive Marc Elrich said in a statement. “One of the fundamental purposes of art is to uplift and inspire. Coming out of a pandemic, we need that more than ever. It makes a difference. A mural can change the feel of a neighborhood.”

Established by Montgomery County in 1994, BUP is a downtown management organization that markets and maintains downtown Bethesda. The BUP team works in marketing, maintenance, transportation and administration to produce cultural events and community festivals and attend to landscaping and maintenance needs.