Giant fishing lures hang down the Kern's tower, painted for the SoKno Art Walk
A muralist has turned the old bakery's tower into a tackle box several stories tall. It is one of the first pieces of a rail trail that will run from Chapman Highway to Ijams Park.
- The mural
- "Shiny Objects" by Naomi Haverland
- Where
- The tower at Kern's · 2201 Kern's Rising Way
- Cost
- Free · it's on the outside of the building
- The trail
- SoKno Rail Trail & Art Walk · 3.8 miles, Chapman Highway to Ijams Park · scheduled to open this fall
- The art walk
- 1.5 miles, Chapman Highway to Island Home · four murals and four sculptures to start
- Paid for by
- A $1 million gift from the Lawson Family Foundation
- Who
- Legacy Parks Foundation, with Gulf & Ohio Railway, the City of Knoxville and Dogwood Arts
- Coming next
- A painted train engine, and ten-foot letters spelling SOKNO
Look up the next time you are at Kern's. The tower on the old bakery now carries "Shiny Objects," a mural of fishing lures blown up to the size of the building, painted with hard cast shadows so they appear to dangle off the brick. The artist is Naomi Haverland, who works out of Florida and painted one of the KnoxWalls murals at Emory Place in 2024. She has said she picked lures because they are built to catch the eye and because fishing is part of life in East Tennessee.
What it belongs to
The mural is one of four planned for the SoKno Rail Trail & Art Walk, a 3.8-mile trail on the old rail line from Chapman Highway to Ijams Park. The first mile and a half, from Chapman Highway to Island Home, is the art walk, and it opens with four murals and four sculptures chosen with Dogwood Arts and paid for by a million-dollar gift from the Lawson Family Foundation. Legacy Parks Foundation told its annual luncheon on September 25 that the mural at Kern's is finished, that another was days from starting, and that more pieces go in over the next few weeks. The trail is scheduled to open this fall.
What comes next
Two more pieces have been announced: a historic train engine that will be set on the trail and painted, and a set of ten-foot metal letters spelling SOKNO, each one a mural. Legacy Parks is raising $25,000 for the letters, and a single letter can be sponsored for $5,000. The lures, meanwhile, cost nothing to look at. Kern's is open seven in the morning to ten at night Thursday, to eleven Friday, eight to eleven Saturday and nine to nine Sunday.
