COLORADO SPRINGS — As a part of the 24th annual Art on the Streets exhibit in downtown Colorado Springs, one artist took a day to invite any and all passersby to write a small message on her mural; the hope was to build up our community.
The mural, a 16x14 foot piece that was hand-painted by artist Annie Hong on the side of the Einstein's in downtown Colorado Springs, is titled 'From U to you' and was designed to foster a sense of community to all those that pass by.
Following the completion of the mural during the last weekend of May, Hong and Downtown Ventures, a non-profit affiliate of the Downtown Partnership that's dedicated art and historic preservation, invited the public to take two hours to write short messages on the massive piece of art.
The prompt was, "what do you need to hear from yourself."
"So I hope that people can see others' responses in that mural and see something of themselves and know that they're not alone," commented Michelle Winchell, executive director of Downtown Ventures, "and that there are people in the community that need to hear those positive messages too."
Dozens of passersby took the opportunity to write a short message and within the first hour about four languages were represented on the newly finished mural.
"It makes us all feel like we're part of the same family, [the] same city," commented one person.
"We can learn more about each other and [about] what we need to hear," stated another.
Additionally, Hong hoped to connect people to the piece itself, "With this piece, I just wanted to bridge that gap a little bit, to show that art is everywhere and we're all kind of creators and we're all kind of artists; so yeah, I think that's a cool thing that I've also found in the process of this."
The mural will live in downtown Colorado Springs for a year, along with 11 other new pieces of art that Art on the Streets brought to the town.
This is the 24th year that Art on the Streets has brought public art to downtown Colorado Springs.
This year, 95 artists applied to the program and 12 were brought on board. Of that number, several are local to Colorado and two are local to the Pikes Peak region.
You can find out more about Art on the Streets and the ongoing mission of Downtown Ventures by clicking HERE.
