Place Making Public Art and Kids Fest at Earthday in Great Collaboration with The City of Carson!

 At Artward Initiative we greatly believe in long term collaborations.  One of our primary collaboration is with the City of Carson, California on the Love My Neighbor project.  As we now building back our public engagement to the levels we had pre-Covid, our Carson collaboration reached yet another level.  

For the 2023 Earth Day Kids Fest we decided with our Carson partners to create something truly spectacular and lasting.  We decided to create the Love My Neighbor themed community place making mural.  To have the process of mural creation to serve as the community engagement tool, we opted for a hand print option.  Often more exciting in concept than in results it seems hard to think up an effective way to make handprints truly work visually, and yet with the creative prowess of our lead artist Alexey Steele the concept definitely proved breathtaking!

Alexey came up with the super exciting color theme and meticulously selected top quality mural colors and supplies.  Together we have developed special logistical protocols to handle kids, visitors and paints to make sure all participants have a full measure of safe and creative experience.

It was a complex and logistically involved process to satisfy multiple city regulations which demanded a lot of preparation work and even involved installing a special technologically advanced outdoor rated canvas on the wall, but the result was most certainly worth all the above and beyond effort.  

It all came together in the most spectacular way as a true celebration of Carson community spirit! 





Carson Mayor Lula Davis-Holmes







Arleen Bocatija Rojas, Council Member District 4 and Mayor Lula Davis-Holmes 

 






Mayor Lula Davis-Holmes and Jim Dear, Council Member District 2

 

Jawane Hilton, Mayor Pro Tem, District 1

 


Jim Dear, Council Member District 2





Mayor and Council Members volunteered with the logistics - 

applied protective hand lotion, paints on hands and washed hands of the participants.
















All age groups and Carson communities participated.



For some participants the experience proved to be spiritual in nature.







































Project Lead Artist Alexey Steele coordinated and orchestrated 

the placement of every color.