City-Wide Murals Add Vibrancy to Community 'Scapes

This post comes from a press release courtesy of the Creative District Wilmington...

Photos of each city mural. Photo courtesy of Creative District Wilmington. 

Three of Creative District Wilmington's city-wide mural projects have been huge successes, spanning the communities from Westside to Riverside. CDW is grateful to the residents and supporters of these projects — with a special shout-out to artists Corei and Crae Washington of Smashed Label, James Wyatt, and Eric Okdeh for their creativity and talent — their dedication to the projects is evident in the process.

Each mural began by engaging the residents of the community to join open conversations to express their ideas for the images. The artist then developed a design and presented it to the community for feedback and approval. Once the final image was established, the artist scaled the image to the size of the wall, breaking the image into multiple panels on special cloth, known as parachute cloth, for painting.

The community was then invited to attend the paint days — everyone was welcome, no experience was necessary! For this city-wide mural project, each mural community had 3 scheduled paint days in June. A "mural squad" of 10 dedicated local artists participated in all the community paint days, even the Mayor stopped by to add to the mix!

Two  out of the three murals have been installed. The mural located at Kingswood Community Center will be installed by the end of July.

Dedication ceremonies for each mural will be announced soon!

See www.creativedistrictwilm.com. 

Wilmington’s Creative District Unveils Veterans Freedom Mural

Content of this post courtesy of press release from the Creative District Wilmington...

Wilmington Renaissance Corporation (WRC) and Creative District Wilmington dedicated the Veterans Freedom Mural on Tuesday, June 28, 2016 at Marcella’s House in downtown Wilmington. Governor Jack Markell and Secretary of State Jeff Bullock were among the distinguished speakers at the event.

The Veterans Freedom Mural, Getting Back to the World, is the inaugural project for Wilmington’s first-ever free public art training program, entitled Public Art Prep Program (PAPP). Creative District Wilmington and Connections Community Support Programs, Inc., partnered to develop PAPP as an opportunity for local artists to learn new skills as well as expand their experience in neighborhood mural-making by combining community engagement practices and public art-making techniques.

The Veterans Freedom Mural is on the exterior wall of Marcella’s House, a 31-unit veterans’ residential facility owned by Connections Community Support Programs, Inc. at the intersection of 9th and Washington Streets. Mural-making at its core is a community process, and the Veterans Freedom Mural is a collaborative effort that engaged a number of key stakeholders in community planning meetings and community paint days.

Muralist Eric Okdeh was the lead artist on the project, and facilitated workshops where artists observed and learned from his process, practicing the techniques while creating the Veterans Freedom Mural. Okdeh facilitated community engagement meetings, teaching participants how to elicit feedback and distill it into mural imagery. Participants learned how to use the parachute cloth method to create the mural and the actual installation of parachute cloth. They also learned how to create and install glass mosaic. Participants who

completed the Public Art Prep Training workshop series received a non-credit certificate of completion.

See www.creativedistrictwilm.com.