Sarah Fox’s “Lines of Connection” Mural at the Central City Gazebo Park

Huntington artist Sarah Fox, originally from the Beckley area, brought her talent to the Central City District this July 2026 as one of eight muralists chosen for the Central City Quilt Trail Reimagined. Her mural, titled “Lines of Connection,” lives at the Central City Gazebo Park, depicting the history of the passenger rail line that once ran through where the Gazebo now sits, while also highlighting how that history serves the community today. She shared more about herself and her design inspiration.

Sarah has loved art since she was a child and said she spent lots of time outside with big rolls of paper, painting all the things she loved, from flowers to cats, dogs, and other animals. “My grandmother is a painter and really cultivated my curiosity, creativity, and respect for the non-human world,” Sarah shared. She began oil painting in college and said that she loved how it made her slow down and spend a lot of time on a single subject, adding that she finds it both meditative and exhilarating. “Now I paint lots of large-scale oil paintings, primarily focusing on the lives of non-human animals, but enjoy experimenting with illustrative ceramics, propmaking, and collaborative artmaking,” she said. 

Sarah said she loves quilting as a means of storytelling. She said, “Both quilting and storytelling are integral to Appalachian art, and I was drawn to this project as a way of tapping into that regional and familial history through a medium that is familiar to me: painting.” Her mural, “Lines of Connection,” depicts a variation on the wagon wheel quilt pattern and highlights the historic passenger train car tracks that brought people to and from Central City, as well as different products that were once manufactured here. “Overlaid are red-bellied woodpeckers, native to West Virginia, which symbolize the hard-working nature of the district and the current status of the park today,” she said.

Sarah said she was inspired by the history of Central City, and she “wanted to have a quilt design that represented both of the stages of the site’s life.” She also said she felt the wagon wheel was perfect, “mirroring literally the wheel of a passenger car and the round central hub of that Gazebo that stands today.”

Sarah said she learned a lot about Polytab and said it will be extremely valuable to her future projects and for her development as an artist. “I loved getting to paint something so big in my studio,” she shared, “... but what I enjoyed most of all was listening to the oral histories from different community members and hearing more personal accounts of the changes and transformation that Central City has gone through.” 

Sarah said she loves Huntington and that this project was needed, adding that she is an advocate for seeing the arts succeed in this city. See “Lines of Connection” on your next trip to the Central City Gazebo Park, located at 544 W. 14th Street, Huntington, WV. You can learn more about Sarah by visiting her website www.sarahfoxartist.com or following on Instagram @sarahfoxart19. Learn more about the Central City Quilt Trail and other artists involved with the project by visiting the project page online.