Make Your Mark E. 130th St. Mural
The Make Your Mark project will bring to life the experiences and imagination of youth through a creative process facilitated by professional artists to install a vibrant mural on E 130th St.
Leader
Josiah Britt
Location
E. 130th St. Cleveland, OH 44120
About the project
The E 130th Make Your Mark project will bring to life the experiences and imagination of youth through a creative process facilitated by professional muralists to install a vibrant mural on E 130th St. between Buckeye Road and Shaker Square. Eight enthusiastic youth participants from the community have been working with local muralists Lauren Pearce and Brandon Graves to express their ideas about their neighborhood and community artistically. The muralists will now transform the youth’s ideas into a permanent mural covering the enclosed ground floor parking area at the Shaker Square Towers (2815 and 2825 E. 130th).
The Shaker Square Towers building is the largest on the street and its appearance makes an outsized impact on the entire block. The first-floor level parking area of the Shaker Square Towers was enclosed in cinderblocks in 2018. The appearance of the building remains an eyesore, but the cinder block walls provide an opportunity to engage and inspire residents of the apartment buildings lining E.130th St. as well as the many community members who traverse the street to access the E. 130th US Post Office and the commercial and transit hubs of Shaker Square and Buckeye Rd.
The Make Your Mark project grew out of the E 130th Working Group planning for the 2020 Soul of Buckeye summer festival. Since the pandemic limited public gatherings, we chose to continue the momentum of previous festivals by bringing together youth and artists from the community in a collaborative project known as Make Your Mark.
Discussion among committee members led to three primary objectives:
- Engage youth in a meaningful way
- Undertake a physical improvement to the street
- Demonstrate the continual improvement of physical conditions on the street as well as the increasing civic engagement
The Steps
January – April 2021 (Completed): Since this past January, the youth and muralists have been meeting virtually to practice artistic expression and explore the idea of community. Each participant has been provided with an “art kit” to participate and a modest stipend recognizing their involvement. Five virtual workshop sessions were held with the youth and muralists. The first session was an orientation, and the four subsequent sessions focused on the artistic process of developing ideas for the mural. We have had 100% youth participation at all of our 6 workshop sessions.
May 2021 (Completed): Muralists Brandon Graves and Lauren Pearce then took the ideas and themes generated from the youth workshop sessions and incorporated them into a preliminary mural concept. Then, during an additional workshop session held in May, the muralists presented their vision to the youth, eliciting feedback and further refinement.
The conceptual phase of the Make Your Mark project was funded by the Saint Luke’s Foundation Resident Advancement Committee. Now, we are fundraising for the installation of the mural.
June – July 2021: The muralists will now take the feedback from the youth participants and refine their mural concept into a final design and plan for installation. While the muralists are finalizing their installation plan, the project team will be involved with the preparation of the wall and staging for installation. A major effort will be made to obtain donated or deeply discounted paint by working with the building owner.
July – August 2021: The installation will then occur during July and August. The youth participants will again be invited to help paint the mural and see their ideas coming to life. The Make Your Mark team and the E. 130th St. Working Group plan to have the mural completed before the 2021 E 130th Buckeye Summer Soul Festival (with the optimistic hope that public health conditions will permit a festival gathering).
Why we‘re doing it
The mission of the E. 130th St. Working Group is to aid the emergence of a high quality of life on E. 130th St. E. 130th Street is a unique corridor connecting the hub of Shaker Square with Buckeye Road and the residential community south of Buckeye. Community charrettes held in 2016 identified priority problems along E 130th St. including insufficient sidewalks, absence of handicapped ramps, and the lack of art or greenery. Notably, recommendations included the installation of a mural in a “stand-out” location.
Over the last 5 years, the E. 130th St. Working Group has worked with residents and stakeholders to ensure public safety, hold owners of rental properties accountable for maintenance and upkeep, and pursue removal of highly distressed properties. Additionally, we have worked with our city council representative to address quality of life issues such as our work preventing a Family Dollar location from obtaining a liquor license and influencing a local service station to clean out illegal activity, post no loitering signs, and deploy security guards. We have also joined with neighboring residential streets in establishing the annual E. 130th Soul of Buckeye festival. Our 2019 sign-in sheets demonstrate that festival attendance reached 300 attendees that year. The Make Your Mark mural project, is designed as an extension of the energy and revitalization provided by the civic activism and summer festivities we have organized over the years.