By Reagan Stone
IMC student
hottytoddynews@gmail.com
Oxford Canteen, a local Oxford restaurant located on N. Lamar Blvd., recently commissioned Victoria Daily, a senior art major at the University of Mississippi, to create a mural for the side of their building.
“We always wanted to have a mural at Canteen,” said Cynthia Joyce, co-owner, alongside her husband Corbin Evans, of Oxford Canteen, “but when you’re running a restaurant there’s always something more pressing demanding your attention, so while we floated ideas around from time to time, we never followed through on any of them.”
It wasn’t until Joyce saw a post from Dr. Jason Hoeksema, a professor at Ole Miss, about his student Victoria Daily that they decided to choose Daily to do the mural. “He [Hoeksema] is a friend and regular at Canteen so we automatically trusted his endorsement,” Joyce said.
The mural, which took three weeks to plan and one week to paint, was designed with owner and head chef Corbin Evans’ honeycomb tattoo in mind. “We wanted something that would literally ‘brighten the corner’ – something with a lot of color – and working with Vic [Daily] was so easy and fun,” Joyce said. “I can’t say enough positive things about Vic [Daily], she blew us away with both her ability and professionalism.”
Since completing the mural for Oxford Canteen, Daily has received more commissions as a result.
“Given all the positive feedback we’ve gotten, it’s obviously generated a lot of positive energy in the middle of this pandemic,” Joyce said. “It makes me think we ought to be painting the entire town in murals.”