"In my life..."

Jonathan doing the dirty work!

This weekend the group began our preparation of the alley for next weekend's Arts Walk and Procession. We pressure-washed the alley floor and walls on Friday. It was a wet and wild procedure that involved more feces than any of us really wanted to deal with. After that we taped-up the outlines of our four chalkboards and began priming them for black paint (donated graciously by Olympia Supply Co. and Sherwin-Williams).

Our prompt

The next day we rose with the sun (YES, THE SUN!) and met downtown at 8:30to get to work. This work day for us happened to correspond with the bi-annual Olympia Downtown Cleanup so we got free supplies and a free lunch for our contribution to the beautification of downtown! We covered up some of the tagging on the Patrico Building (which was greatly satisfying), and we painted our four chalkboards on the Griswald Building. We also painted the prompt "In my life..." above our chalkboards

Candy Chang's "Before I Die..." Wall

 The prompted chalkboard idea was inspired by an installation done by Candy Chang, a public installation artist, who created similar chalkboards in New Orleans. Her chalkboards had the prompt "Before I Die..." in bold lettering. In columns on the boards were lines that said "Before I die I will______________________". This installation called for community engagement and was greatly successful. When we stumbled upon her project we were so inspired that we decided to use her idea (after contacting her, of course). Though we had her permission to use the same prompt, our client encouraged us to change it up, thus our prompt "In my life..."

 So, our 2D installation is almost ready for next weekend. We just have to add in the columns of lines that say "In my life I want to____________"

Aubrie painting Community Voice

and perhaps add a bit of embellishment. Some of the cool things about our work this weekend: We got to keep one of the best parts of the mural, the sunrise over the mountain! It looks great and really brings attention to our prompt. Also, the spaces between our chalkboards mirror the intermittent columns of the Patrico Building on the other side of the alley creating coherency between the walls. These spaces also let some of the previously existing mural and graffiti shine through. This keeps some of the character of downtown Olympia while adding a bit of order to it. When we had all the the chalkboards taped out we also noticed that we could mirror the gated archway of the Patrico Building as well as the columns, thus came the birth of "Community Voice," a smaller arched chalkboard that invites advertisement of community events, or the sharing of quotes, and other creative expressions... in chalk only please!!

More pictures from Saturday:

New chalkboards!

Jesse, happily painting!

Alex and the MINI ROLLER!

Michael mucking

Nick, lookin' good! (Sorry, I didn't get a picture of you working).