Downtown Jacksonville got a new dose of public art this week, courtesy of a five-panel mural installed across the street from the Florida Theatre.
The wood panels, each 4 feet wide and 8 feet high, depict musicians and performers on a continuous stage inspired by the theater. They hang on a wall outside Dos Gatos, a cocktail lounge at 123 E. Forsyth St.
The mural was a collaborative effort by several groups who ultimately used the creative abilities of 25 students from First Coast High School, said Kendall Barsin, director of marketing for the Florida Theatre. The project has special significance because it united students with behavioral or emotional difficulties who have been removed from regular classroom settings and gave them a common goal.
Inspiration for the mural goes back more than a year, Barsin said, when she and a co-worker began looking for something unusual that would ?promote the theater, promote music, and would be a work of art as well.?
Across the street, on the wall of Dos Gatos facing North Newnan Street, was a mural with images of ballet dancers and reproductions of various works of art. Barsin spoke with Dos Gatos owner Jason Albertelli about changing the mural, she said, and he agreed.
?We chose to use the space as an open canvas,? Barsin said.
Barsin later talked to Laurie Brown, a teacher with Cathedral Arts Project, a nonprofit that provides programs in dance, music, drama and visual arts to about 1,400 students in Duval County schools each year. Brown said she jumped at the chance to be a part of the project.
Brown works with five schools and said First Coast was the only one ?that hadn?t done a mural in the past three years.? In a partnership through the school?s Behavioral Education and Social Skills Teaching program, known as the B.E.S.s.T program, she enlisted the participation of the 25 students.
The Florida Theatre provided the wood for the panels, and a $500 grant from the Cultural Council of Greater Jacksonville paid for the art supplies needed to create the mural.
The project took about one week of planning and six weeks of painting, Brown said.
Along the way, the students ?experienced doubt and changes? in their vision for the project, Barsin said, ?but they worked through each issue as it came.?
?It was interesting for [the students in the B.E.S.s.T. program] to go from the concept to see it come to fruition,? Brown said. ?They really had to come together and work toward a common goal. We are hugely grateful for what the cultural council was able to do for us.?
Robert Arleigh White, the cultural council?s executive director, said the partnership that resulted in the mural ?is exactly the kind of partnership that the council aspires to support.?
He praised the mural for its contribution to art in public places.
?Art in public places creates a sense of place, it heightens a sense of community, and it uplifts the gaze of the audience members, the people who pass it by.? White said. ?It creates an expectation that there is going to be more art, engagement and color.?
David Crumpler: (904) 359-4164
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