Paintscape Party
During our 2017-2018 @PLAY Akron project, Art x Love’s team explored and mapped every street in Akron, interviewing thousands of residents across Akron’s 24 neighborhoods to identify key challenges and opportunities to improve people’s quality of life.
In Akron’s Goodyear Heights neighborhood, Reservoir Park was identified as a key area of need. After more than 50 years, the facility was showing signs of increasing vandalism, neglect, and disrepair. Many residents we interviewed didn’t even know there was a pool there. Our team worked with the City of Akron and local stakeholders to power-wash the walls, and organized several events to reinvigorate this once vibrant community landmark.
The Reservoir Park Paintscape Party was originally conceived of as a collaborative community painting day to transform the dirty concrete slabs around the Reservoir Park community center, public pool, and recreation areas into a vibrant asphalt art-space. Unfortunately, several before our event, a cold front swept in, forcing our team to pivot and move the event inside. Instead of a 2-day exterior asphalt art project, the Paintscape Party became a 2-day collaborative mural painting experience.
More than 300 residents showed up and painted 20 collaborative murals that were designed by Mac Love and David Schweyer, a Goodyear Heights artist and business owner. Despite the frigid temperature, individuals, families, children, and groups showed up to make their mark. The walls of the community center were lined with modular mural panels. Art x Love’s team was positioned in the center of the room, where we handed out cups of paint in whatever color the participant was looking for. David guided some of the young artists, and others were encouraged to paint whatever came to mind for them. Day 1 of the Paintscape Party proved so popular that Mac had to go back to the studio that night to create 6 more collaborative murals so there would be enough for everyone on Day 2.
After the event, all of the panels were loaded into our truck and transported back to our studio. Several murals were completed as is – others required a bit more work. Art x Love hired local artists, including David, to finalize each of the mural panels while preserving the community’s marks. Once complete, each of the mural panels was finished with a 2K polyurethane anti-graffiti coating. 12 of the murals were installed outside at Reservoir Park, and the remaining 6 were installed at sites in the city’s North Hill, Summit Lake, University Park, Middlebury, and Downtown Akron neighborhoods.
