It's been nearly two decades in the making, but Sal Nuccio is finally getting his wish - sort of.
The tile ceiling at a more than 100-year-old building in the heart of Jefferson City's Old Munichburg neighborhood is slowly shifting colors. Over the previous three months, it began transforming into vibrant hues of yellow, blue, magenta and a stark white - even though the art is on the ceiling, it's hard to miss when you walk in the door of The Tavern.
The painted tile project is part of Nuccio's latest effort to bring life and the arts back to the corner of Madison and Dunklin streets. The former home of Welcome Inn Again, The Tavern first opened in mid-May, and Nuccio immediately held karaoke night, established a space for an art gallery and brought in live entertainment for the grand opening in July.
When Nuccio, who also owns Eastside Tavern in Columbia, walked into The Tavern and looked up at the barren, tile ceiling, he reminisced about removing the drop ceiling years ago at his Columbia location as a way to create more space and an industrial feel.
"I said, 'Oh man, I have the chance again to do this art tile project that I kind of passed up on years ago,'" he remembered.
His goal, Nuccio said, is to offer a unique experience, "something that's definitely not mainstream."
A look around the bar backs that up. A "Master Yoda" sits on some surface inside the bar at all times, and an all-metal airplane flies above the pool table in the front of the bar - conversation pieces, he said.
"I wanted to attract artists and musicians," Nuccio said. "I don't think there's really a place in town that's a hub for artists and musicians, a gathering place where they can meet and hang out and just be their own community."
So he took to Facebook, creating a call to action for more than 100 tiles waiting to be painted. As of Wednesday, seven tiles had been painted and were displayed in the bar.
For artist Wally Linebarger, the project brought back memories of the venue's early days.
Linebarger, who grew up in Jefferson City then relocated to study and teach in Texas, lived in the apartment above the bar from 2009-14 when he first returned to the area.
"I lived there five years, so I have a connection to the actual venue. It's kind of a special thing for me," he said.
In Texas, the artist community was far more intertwined, he reminisced. Now back in Jefferson City, with two degrees in fine arts, Linebarger found himself selling his pieces primarily online. And even though he's been living in the city for roughly 10 years, he said he still doesn't necessarily feel connected.
"I found people aren't connected here. There are artists, but they're not connected," he said. "We don't have that community."
So when his friend Mike Callahan told him of the project, he jumped at the chance to pay homage to the venue and share his art with Mid-Missouri.
His piece is a little different than the others - he purposely chose and used the back of a tile, where yellowed water marks splash across the middle.
"I said, 'Oh, I'll take the water-stained one.' That was my first choice, and I chose the one that (Nuccio) thought he would throw away. I wanted it because it's a part of the building," Linebarger said.
When he first moved into the apartment above the bar, Linebarger said, the building was "filthy." Bringing that element into the art piece was just another way of paying homage to the original building. And the shattered ceramic on the right of the piece is metaphoric, too.
"They broke a lot of glasses (at Welcome Inn Again). They threw glasses. It was a pretty wild place sometimes," Linebarger chuckled. With the memory in mind, he crafted the pieces of a broken ceramic pot into an exploding moon, used the water spots as stars, and painted in sprawling, black trees along the bottom of the tile.
He mixed mediums - watercolors, oils and tempera - and attached torn pieces of other paintings as a way to convey the tile splitting apart. And with the exploding moon as the primary focal point, he named the piece "Snow Trees #4 with Exploding Moon." Despite its complexity, the 48-by-24-inch tile didn't take him very long. He's used to painting murals.
As he painted in final strokes of yellow along the shattered ceramic jutting out from the flat surface of the tile, he admitted his piece doesn't reflect his body of work, typically characterized by dream-like swirls of color - this one is "intentionally rough."
"It's not a great piece of art," Linebarger said. "But it's fun to do the tile."
The ceiling in The Tavern already displays a variety of styles, even though much of it still remains unclaimed. Linebarger's piece contrasts a pop art Twiggy illustration by Annie Schulte and a blue winter landscape by Bernie Houchens.
In between them, the silhouette of an elk ambles across the ceiling. It took artist Rebecca Taylor two days of staring at an empty tile canvas before settling on painting the massive mammal.
"I sat and looked at the canvas for two days after I prepped it," Taylor said. "I thought, 'What am I going to do?' I was initially going to do a flower."
But she said a flower, while her go-to choice (she's painted dozens of them), might not appeal to all audiences. She contemplated using eye-catching colors then started searching for inspiration. It's how the deep sunset behind the elk came to life.
"I just kind of started watching. Everyone on Facebook was posting these pictures. And I said, 'OK, there's purples and blues and reds,'" Taylor said. She started the sunset with dark blue oils, adding oranges, pinks and purples as she worked her way down her canvas.
The oils soaked in quickly, even with two base coats of a pale, silvery gray filling in some of the porous texture of the tile. She finished the sunset in a day. When it was completed, Taylor took a step back and stared at the silver of the base coat shining through in the small holes of the tile - stars in the evening sky.
It was a happy accident.
After photographing the piece in daylight and at nighttime, she discovered another. In daylight, the sunset glows pastel with soft pinks and blues. Photographed inside, away from natural light, the sunset burns a deep orange and purple. It's almost as if the oils shift colors.
"Another happy accident," Taylor said.
Seeing her tile up on the ceiling at The Tavern next to the others sparked hope. Taylor has only been painting for around two years, and she still considers her art a hobby rather than a livelihood. Being able to showcase her art in a public place could bring calls for commissioned work - so far, she's only had one.
She pointed to the right corner of the tile, where she signed her art with the outline of a rabbit - her initials, RABT.
"I'm pretty happy with it," she paused, then chuckled. "I almost didn't want to give it back."