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Park City
Everything to do inside of Park City proper.

The Public Art Project At China Bridge Is Off To A Great Start

Artist Emily Herr was awarded the $40,000 public art contract with Park City to create four murals in the China Bridge parking. Only a few members of the public showed on Saturday to help paint the mural. Even so, things went faster than anticipated. Melissa Allison tells us its not too late to get involved:


There is still plenty of room for people who would like to add to the public art project taking place this month at the China Bridge parking lot.

Artist Emily Herr has all of September to make it happen but if things keep going as they did the first day, she may finish a little ahead of schedule.

About five people showed up on Saturday and Herr said people were a little hesitant at first.

“Peoples first response is always, ‘Oh you don’t want me. You don’t want me to paint on your wall,'" Herr said. "And I’m like, ‘No, I absolutely do.’ For one thing, I want everybody’s input. I think it’s important for a public art piece to reflect the community that’s gonna to be surrounding it and seeing it every day. For another think, participants, volunteers, the community’s job is not to make it perfect. It’s to add energy and life and texture. And then my job is to come back and craft it into something coherent. So, the more energy and different styles and approaches we can get, the better.”

Herr said they finished the first layer before lunch.

The four levels of the garage will each have a different theme.

“Each wall has its own color scheme, the colors are based on the wildflowers that are going to be the final product," Herr said. "So, this wall is light whites and blues and pinks and purples. Cornflowers, asters, those kinds of flowers. But it’s also reflecting this sort of winter sports, outdoors, Olympics element of Park City. So, the others will have similarly Park City based themes. The towns history is the next own down, arts and culture is the KPCW wall and then the open space, outdoor environment is the bottom wall.”

Local artist Bridgette Meinhold said she had selfish reasons for telling Herr about the job.

“I told Emily about the RFP because I knew it would be a great mural project and she’s the best muralist I know," Meinhold said. "And so, I wanted to get her out to Utah to show off her skills. I was a little selfish, I wanted her to come out to Park City for a month too.”

She said it’s a unique opportunity for everyone in Park City, regardless of their skill level, to be artists for a day and have their work memorialized.

“I love how it involves community and it involves people who don’t think that they’re artists," Meinhold said. "But they come out and they get to be part of it. And they get to make something that is a lot more special because so many people are involved,”

Meinhold said people will be surprised how their inner child will show up, waking their inner artist once they have brush in hand.

Herr said she can’t do it without you and encourages you to join her and Tyler.

“I’m inviting everybody to create sort of the meat of the imagery and the texture, the color," Herrsaid. "And then, that will happen on the weekends and then during the week, Moonie and I are going to paint silhouettes of wildflowers, local, native wildflowers. Kind of carving it into the existing layer of paint.”

Saturday’s are participation days when the public gets to paint. You can check the available dates at chinabridge.eventbright.com.

Herr and Tyler welcome artists and non-artists of all ages and skill levels.

I’m Melissa Allison, KPCW News.

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