Strong Towns Blono is partnering again with several Bloomington institutions to bring back temporary sidewalk art to downtown streets.
Last May, the grassroots advocacy group commissioned an artist to paint 15 circus-themed murals connecting the Bloomington Public Library and the McLean County Museum of History. The organization will do the same thing this summer to celebrate the centennial of Route 66.
“I thought it was really successful,” said Katherine McCarthy, who chairs Strong Town's public art and safety committee. “We had 32 applications, really good applications. We had excellent finalists, three finalists, and the winning artist was Delia Kerr-Dennhardt, who did a circus theme.”
Kerr-Dennhardt painted a a series of sidewalk murals from the library to the museum, with 15 large murals and smaller spot murals connecting them. Strong Towns president Noah Tang said it added a bit of whimsy, which he hopes to carry over.
“One of our goals for the murals is to continue to build a sense of place for people outside of cars, and to connect visually the public library to the downtown core,” said Tang. “I kept getting people saying, ‘Oh, those murals are you? We really enjoyed them.’”
Strong Towns also wants to encourage walkability, pedestrian safety and foster a sense of place. Tang said this would ideally help all residents feel more connected to Downtown.
“I really want to foster this idea of co-creation of space, of public space. Many people, when they interact with the urban environment, whether it’s Downtown Bloomington or the areas in the urban core, they think, ‘Oh, this is city stuff, this is just here. It’s not yours…’” he said.
“And giving residents the opportunity to take part in creating these murals, because we do have volunteers come in and help the artists…it really helps create a sense of pride and ownership over the places that we inhabit, and that’s a cultural shift that we also want to stick in Bloomington-Normal.”
This year, the winning artist will take on celebrating the 100-year-old Mother Road. Tang said Strong Towns will not really operate like a traditional curator — instead the artist will have a lot of room for their interpretation.
“It’s a pretty simple, straightforward process. It’s only open to Central Illinois artists,” said McCarthy. “Again, we want to get people engaged in the local area.”
Three finalists will be selected from the applications who will each be compensated $250 for labor. The winning artist will receive $5,000 to install the murals.
Eventually, Strong Towns would like to see sidewalk art and murals become a permanent fixture in Bloomington-Normal. McCarthy hopes the smaller pilot projects will get residents expecting more in the future once the culture is built.
“Maybe we can, in the future, get a crosswalk, because that’s a much bigger step. So, it’s all these little steps to go into the future to see how we can and it’s also learning,” she said. “Last year, we had never done it before, and so there was a big learning curve.”
The planned murals for the centennial of Route 66 are set for an opening celebration in June.
Interested applicants, volunteers or businesses can find out how to be a part of the murals on the Strong Towns Blono website.
