Cities across the planet are employing Asphalt Art as a low-cost means of incorporating colorful murals into public places. In October, Fort Myers will join Cape Coral and Sarasota in this trend when more than 30 artists from the Fort Myers Mural Society descend on Lions Park to paint images of wildlife on the gently curving sidewalks that wind their way from the playground to the park’s new pavilion.
The Fort Myers Mural Society is participating in the project at the invitation of the City’s Parks & Recreation Department and Public Art Committee, and it’s brought in a partner of their own.
“Octagon Wildlife Sanctuary will be our wildlife partner in the project,” said Mural Society Director Shari Shifrin. “They have accommodated us by offering us photographs of the native species that are included in the Octagon Wildlife Sanctuary.”
“Including indigenous species in the murals offers an education feature for the kids that are participating in the park,” said Shifrin. “[They] might not necessarily know what some of these species are, or know what to look for in the habitat, so it will offer them a little bit of a relationship to the area that surrounds the park and playground as well.”
Of course, there will be one exception. Octagon’s pumpkin-eating Barbary lion, Bosu, will be featured on the concrete floor of the new pavilion.
“Lions are not indigenous to Fort Myers, but the Lions Club of Lee County donated the space to the city of Fort Myers back in 1946.”
In addition to mural society members and other area professional muralists who respond to the mural society’s call to artists, the project will include 15 Lee County art honor society students. They’ll begin painting October 7 and the project will be completed in time for the dedication ceremony scheduled for Saturday, October 26th.
Shifrin expects the project to draw a bevy of new visitors from the surrounding neighborhoods.
“It’s a wonderful playground,” Shifrin observed. “It’s a great space. It doesn’t have a lot of community that utilizes the park. I think this will encourage the community to participate. It’s something else to do while you’re there, and I think that’s really important to community … It’s an art place. It will become an art hub … once that happens.”
Located at 2550 Cleveland Avenue, Lions Park is already the perfect place for family picnics and children’s birthday parties. By the end of October, it will also be an art-inspired learning center, especially with addition of murals are added to the City’s free informational mobile app, Otocast.
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Asphalt art includes visual interventions on roadways (intersections and crosswalks), pedestrian spaces (parks, plazas and sidewalks), and vertical infrastructure (utility boxes, bus stops, park benches, traffic barriers and unsightly highway underpasses).
In Southwest Florida, Cape Coral and Sarasota have already embraced this new methodology, with Pompano Beach leading the way statewide.
Asphalt art has been found to improve street safety, revitalize public spaces, create a positive visual impact on residents and visitors, and engage the residents of the communities in which they are installed. The Fort Myers Parks & Recreation Department hopes to realize these and associated benefits by adding a strong arts component to its newly-revitalized Lions Park.
With respect to Asphalt Art included in crosswalks and street-adjacent pedestrian walkways, a recent “Asphalt Art Safety Study” conducted by Bloomberg Philanthropies in collaboration with Sam Schwartz Consulting found traffic safety to be demonstrably improved across a cohort of 22 asphalt art projects in the U.S., including a 50% drop in crashes involving pedestrians or cyclists.
In Kansas City, Missouri, the artistic redesign of an intersection historically rife with speeding cars saw average traffic speeds drop by 45%.
Colorful curb extensions in Baltimore, Maryland, led to a 41% increase in the share of drivers yielding to pedestrians with the right of way.
Bloomberg Associates has published an Asphalt Art guidebook. In addition to featuring over two dozen case studies highlighting successful park, plaza and roadway art activations worldwide, the “Asphalt Art Guide: How to Reclaim City Roadways and Public Infrastructure with Art” contains a how-to section for cities interested in undertaking their own Asphalt Art initiatives.
The City’s Public Art Committee believes that Asphalt Art presents an opportunity to create vibrant new public spaces, foster interagency collaboration, and increase Fort Myers’ capacity to work with area artists as well as community groups on creative projects involving parks and transportation infrastructure.
Shari Shifrin expects that the 60 murals going into Lions Park will last more than a decade with minimal maintenance.
“That’s a function of our process, which begins with pressure washing the concrete and then sealing them with a type of paint that prevents moisture from coming up through the concrete and entering the mural from underneath,” Shifrin stated. “In addition, a special Asphalt Art paint will be used to paint the actual imagery. And then it will be sealed with a clear sidewalk sealer that includes grit so they won’t be slippery. Because of all this, the murals really should retain their vibrancy and be intact for 10 to 15 years without too much maintenance.”
The Fort Myers Mural society is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization whose objectives include the revitalization, preservation and economic enhancement of our community through the painting of murals that depict the rich history of our area. FMMS has no paid employees and the business of the FMMS is conducted by a volunteer Board of Directors and Advisers.
For more information on the Society or to apply for inclusion in the Lions Park project, visit https://fortmyersmuralsociety.com, email fortmyersmuralsociety@gmail.com or telephone 239-461-7245.
Since its inception in 1992, the volunteers at Octagon Wildlife have rescued and cared for over a thousand animals. It is a sanctuary, not a zoo. Octagon does not buy, breed or sell any animals. Of course, there have been some occasions when the animals rescued by Octagon were, unbeknownst to Octagon, already pregnant. In those rare instances, Octagon’s volunteers do everything to properly care for both the mother and her offspring, which remain residents of the sanctuary.
Bosu is a Barbary Lion born in 2016. He came from a facility that was downsizing. Barbary Lions lived in the mountains and deserts of the Barbary Coast of North Africa from Moracco to Egypt and are now extinct in the wild. They are one of the largest lion sub-species of lions. They can live up to 25 years under human care.
For more information on Octagon Wildlife Sanctuary, visit https://octagonwildlife.org or telephone 239-543-1130.