'Great things:' City of Wauwatosa seeks artists for shipping container mural arts project
WAUWATOSA -- The City of Wauwatosa is building upon the excitement of its new mural arts program and is seeking submissions from artists for a mural to be installed on a shipping container located in Hart Park in the Village of Wauwatosa.
Kim Land
Drive through Wauwatosa -- and it's hard to miss the splashes of color.
"It just kind of makes it a more exciting place to be," said Kim Land, City of Wauwatosa Tourism Specialist.
The city started the Mural Arts Program in 2019 as a way to bring attention to the businesses on North Avenue.
"Art makes communities a really interesting and special place, and to have Wauwatosa on the map as a destination for murals, for public art -- it just does really great things for the economy, and it brings visitors and it also makes a great place to live for residents and community members alike," said Land.
The program is now expanding, but now instead of a wall, the city is searching for an artist to paint a shipping container.
The shipping container will be used by Tosa Tonight, a summer evening concert series at the Rotary Performance Pavilion. The selected Artist(s) will be required to install a portion of their proposed mural at the Tosa Tonight concert on July 22, 2020.
"If there wasn't a public art initiative that was taking place, it would kind of just be there. Maybe not be exciting to see. But this a reason to get more people to the park and more people coming to Tosa Tonight," said Land.
Three walls of the shipping container have been allocated for the mural installation. Artists have the option to apply for all three surfaces of the container, two surfaces, or one surface. Artists can submit a total of three proposals.
As for what they are looking for, it's clear they are open to many different things.
"We leave that pretty open to the artists," said Land.
Applications are due April 1, 2020. Selected artist(s) will be notified on April 17, 2020. Artists can find additional information and APPLY HERE.