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Harlan now has a new downtown landmark for visitors and residents alike to view as they make their way through downtown.

Harlan Tourism commissioned the work, according to Harlan Tourism Downtown Development and Event Coordinator Laura Adkisson.

“We feel like anything that improves the look of our downtown and is inviting to tourists and encourages them to come downtown, snap a photo, and spend time in our downtown shops and restaurants is a benefit to our community,” Adkisson said. “We felt like the wall on Second Street was well positioned for a mural, so we worked with Dr. Kaitlin Patel at Kentucky Family Dentistry and had a very collaborative design process between Harlan Tourism, Dr. Patel, and the guys at Often Seen Rarely Spoken (the organization which painted the mural). We worked on the design together to come up with something that met our expectations.”

Often Seen Rarely Spoken (OSRS) did the physical work of creating the mural.

“There are five us in the group, but we don’t use our names,” said an OSRS representative.

According to the OSRS, the group offers such mural creation to cities and municipalities looking for murals to enhance tourism or create a landmark in their town or city.

“Harlan liked the idea and was interested in getting a mural done and chose us,” said the OSRS rep.

The OSRS rep stated Harlan’s mural took approximately three days to complete, although some murals may take OSRS as long as nine days. However, the actual painting of the mural is the shortest part of the process.

“We’ve been in conversations for about six to nine months on this one,” said and OSRS member. “This is the tail end of the process.”

OSRS has done murals in Murray, Glasgow, Morehead, Dayton and other locations nationwide.

Adkisson mentioned everybody is happy with the results.

“We are thrilled with the final product,” Adkisson said. “We hope it accomplishes the goal of increasing interest in downtown Harlan for locals and visitors. We encourage everybody to come down and see it, snap a photo in front of it, and while you’re here grab lunch at one of the local restaurants, grab dinner with your friends, pop into a local shop, and make an evening of it.”

For more information on Often Seen Rarely Spoken, visit the website at www.oftenseenrarelyspoken.com.