New Intersection Repair Street Mural

L.A. Eco-Village’s new intersection repair mural – finished mural photos: Joe LintonThanks to the hard work of lots of local residents and many people in town for Bike!Bike!, last weekend the community repainted the L.A. Eco-Village street mural at the intersection of Bimini Place and White House Place.

The street painting is inspired by a group called City Repair from Portland Oregon. They do intersection repair murals as part of to make crossroads places where people come together.

Eco-Village has done earlier intersection repair murals three times: in 2011 and 2009 and circa 2006. The mural gradually wears away and after a half-dozen years needs repainting. Lately  the city has resurfaced the local streets, erasing worn murals.

Intersection Mural Version 3.0

Volunteers painting the central bicycle-wheel design - photo by Yuki

A quick blog post to show off some photographs of last Saturday’s (March 12th 2011) intersection mural painting. This is the third time Eco-Village and our neighbors have painted this “intersection repair” mural. It’s inspired by the work of Portland’s City Repair. This weekend, we mostly freshened-up the mural painted in 2009 – covered here – while adding a few new twists. It was a great opportunity to bring people together. Lots of  kids and adults in our neighborhood helped make something beautiful we can all be proud of!

Portland City Repair inspires L.A. Eco-Village Intersection Repair

Los Angeles Eco-Village’s intersection mural and adjacent bench-planters were inspired by the work of Portland’s City Repair. Thanks to Next American City, I came across the above video (and a short interview here) which gives a beautiful look into City Repair, and highlights one individual Michael Cook, who’s one of the leaders there.

Intersection Repair Mural Designs

Jimmy, Josie, Lara, Doran, Melba, Angie (youth from Bresee) and I put our heads together and came up the rough scheme for the intersection repair mural that we’ll all be painting on Saturday September 12th. For more information about the event, as some photos of the previous intersection repair mural, see this earlier post.

Here’s the basic idea:

The Planned Mural Design

It will have a central circle based on a bicycle wheel. Wrapped around that will be a salamander/lizard. Where the crosswalks go, we’ll be doing lighter colors. In the crosswalk, participants will paint their footprints. Along the lizard, we’ll be writing welcome in multiple languages (likely at least Spanish, English, Korean, and Bangladeshi.) Extending from this will be stylized swirling pattern representing waters. Most of the details will be worked out in the street in chalk on September 12th.

This all grew out of an in inital salamander sketch of Jimmy’s, that has been brainstormed on top of here:

Initial Salamander Sketch

We wanted the creature to help delineate the crosswalks, so we ended up swirling her/him more like this:

Salamander Configuration

These are blurry cell phone pictures… but perhaps they’re enough to communicate the basic ideas. The actual drawings are taped up in the lobby of 117 Bimini Place. If you have suggestions, ideas, etc., please let us know what you’d like to see.

Mural Painting Street Party September 12th

Eco-Village intersection repair painting from a few years ago - the street was later repaved

Portland City Repair‘s Mark Lakeman is returning to Los Angeles in September. He’ll be speaking at eco-village on Friday September 11th then will lead an all-day intersection repair project on Saturday September 12th from 10am to dusk.

The first time I heard Lakeman speak it really changed my thinking about public space and ways that communities can work in a very guerilla do-it-yourself way to reclaim our space. I highly recommend that folks come hear his presentation. It’s Friday September 11th 2009 at 7:30pm at Los Angeles Eco-Village, 117 Bimini Place, L.A. 90004. There’s a suggested donation of $10, with noone turned away. Reservations are recommended, either call 213.738.1254 or email crsp [at] igc.org

Another shot of past eco-village intersection repair in process. The central design was based on a bicycle wheel.

On Saturday September 12th from 10am until dusk, we’ll be putting Friday night’s lessons into practice on the ground at the intersection of Bimini Place and White House Place. We’ll be painting a new intersection mural, and probably a few other projects. The Saturday event is free, all are welcome. Lots of hard-working volunteers needed. Wear clothes that you can get paint on, bring potluck food to share. We’re especially reaching out to families and kids in our neighborhood. There will be music, piñata, arts and crafts, face-painting, and much more!

Plan to participate on Saturday September 12th!

The neighborhood celebrates the nearly-completed mural!