What Do Murals Do For Neighborhoods?

Winsome photographs from Phone Gallery's #THISISWATERLOO exhibition celebrating our neighborhood turned into screen printed greeting cards.

Art is polarizing.

Some of us view a contemporary painting and think, “I, too, could splatter paint, paint one TINY black dot, or flood a canvas with white and only white paint”. Others find subtle, monochromatic brush strokes mesmerizing.

And while each of us can recognize the immense talent needed to sculpt, paint, draw, and construct a museum masterpiece, Degas or Serra might not be your or my favorite.

It’s easy to walk through a gallery and pass up artwork that does not strike you. It’s decidedly more difficult to live in a neighborhood brimming with art that’s not your style.

Jamie Bennett, Executive Director of ArtPlace America, recently spent time in the Waterloo Arts District and spoke highly of our creative movement during a luncheon at The City Club of Cleveland. He spoke passionately of designing public art to “creatively make a place” and identified numerous examples of such interventions in Cleveland (including the “LOCKS of Love, from Waterloo” interactive, extroverted public art fence) funded by grants. NOTE: this art project is the author’s own and if you aren’t pleased with the art you see on Waterloo, come to the fence and affect it visually by adding your own lock!

Mr. Bennett emphasized the need for urban planners to “fundamentally reposition arts and culture as a core sector of community planning”. The question of the role of art in public space is a question I raised earlier this year, also at The City Club, during a discussion on the future of Public Square.  In contrast to the Cleveland project - which focuses on knitting together four squares with grassy lawns and a water feature - Millennium Park in Chicago elevates large-scale public art including an outdoor concrete pavilion, “The Bean”, and interactive digital media towers by big name artists. It is green and watery, too, but the focus is on art, thusly bringing more people into the district.

What Public Square may miss, Waterloo does not. We are a burgeoning, authentic arts district with a diverse history and bright future. Every mural, every sculpture, every gallery exhibition may not be your cup of tea but I urge you to look beyond the paint, steel, and eccentric artists and see the value the arts add to our neighborhood.

Why? Art truly does build community. Think back over the course of this year and the 50+ Collinwood Vibrancy Grant Projects funded by The Kresge Foundation and Cuyahoga Arts and Culture and presided over by Northeast Shores CDC. Non-arts based merchants and artists joined arts business along Waterloo to develop free public events, permanent pieces of visual art, and more importantly relationships.

Why else? Art makes a neighborhood safer. Mr. Bennett relayed a number of scenarios and statistics demonstrating how arts-based businesses draw people to a street at all times of the day (imagine   morning coffee and a poetry reading at a café, potters arriving to a mid-morning class, a craft store open from 9-6pm, a restaurant that bustles in the evening, and a concert venue that rocks out into the wee hours of the morning). It’s a fact that more eyes on the street leads to increased safety.

The visual arts, including murals, define our geography as an arts district and allow us to articulate the change we want to see - literally and figuratively as is the case with the “I want Waterloo…” chalk board wall. Art gives those who live, work, and play here a voice, an opportunity to contribute and participate.

Art gives us identity and that’s something to celebrate.

Listen to The City Club of Cleveland lecture at www.cityclub.org/events/creative-placemaking-across-the-united-states

Allison Lukacsy

Allison is a North Shore Collinwood resident, artist, neighborhood cheerleader, and frequent contributor to the Collinwood Observer.

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Volume 6, Issue 9, Posted 10:35 PM, 10.15.2014