March 9, 2015
Artist Mark Tribe returned to continue planning with the Coleman Center for the Arts (CCA) and the York community for the project, “Painting York.” His third visit to York since 2013, Tribe met to discuss ideas for the project that has been conceived in conversation with area residents and that will continue to develop through collaboration, group decision making and civic action.
Community members are working with the artist to identify important visual elements, popular color schemes and effective design practices, while also developing ideas for how logistical operations of the project can spur economic opportunity, utilize volunteer power and represent the passionate can-do spirit and home pride that York citizens hold dear. In meetings with local downtown building and business owners, Tribe shared research about many of the painting projects and design approaches that have been realized around the world.
A motif from Lima, Peru was particularly popular with local residents, and inspired an experiment with the back of a building in downtown York. On a sunny Saturday morning, volunteers and passersby painted the back of 115 N. Broad St, which faces the busy parking lot across the street from the Piggly Wiggly. Rather than a proposed color scheme for the downtown, the newly painted wall is the beginning of a public conversation about color, design and possibility.
A large color palette of York’s existing colors, made last year in Tribe’s color mapping workshop with CCA students, was layered with current photos of York’s downtown, and international examples of existing painting projects. Tribe discussed images and ideas with people as they wandered by. By the end of the morning, the rear white facade had been transformed into a new colorful scheme. The CCA will continue to realize experiments at different sites around town, maintaining a public conversation about possibilities for “Painting York.”
Tribe will return in July of 2015 for further planning.
For more information please contact the Coleman Center for the Arts at 205-392-2005 or email colemancenter@gmail.com. This project is made possible by funding from the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, ArtPlace America, the Daniel Foundation of Alabama, the National Endowment for the Arts and the Joan Mitchell Foundation.