Announcing new #Plan4Resilience artwork -- w/shyboytoto, Dianna Craig, and Sarah Craft

Pandemic getting you down?  Take a journey in your imagination…
 
Take a moment, close your eyes, and imagine:

“What can we learn from this moment? What has the pandemic taught us?  What can we carry into the future, that can make us more resilient?”
 
We currently face powerful challenges to our future: the pandemic, institutional racism, economic collapse, and the climate crisis. But how we respond can and does make a difference.  We can build a better world, together.

As part of a public art project called #Plan4Resilience, I invited local artists to answer these questions – and to paint the pavement with their answers.

Here are a few of the answers they gave....

Detail from "Imagine A World" by shyboytoto @ the I-House in Davis

“Imagine A World” is being painted this week, July 15-25, by local artist shyboytoto at the I-House.

Walk or bike to the I-house Mrak Terrace (10 College Park, Davis) anytime and see the painting come to life.  Viewing benches welcome folks to relax safely, outdoors, at a distance.  Don't forget to bring a mask, to respect our artist's safety!

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Two other paintings in the series can still be seen in Central Park. 

"Resilience Grows in the Backyard", by Sarah Craft, at the South Side of Farmer's Market Plaza in Central Park, Davis

"Black Lives Matter" by Dianna Craig, at the Solidarity Space for George, Ahmaud, Breonna and Tony

Catch this art while you can -- each of the paintings in #Plan4Resilience is temporary, and fades with sun, rain, and wind – just like the lessons we’ve learned during the pandemic fade into memory, unless we etch them on our hearts.

To plan for resilience, we must renew these messages in our lives -- taking action as individuals -- and as a community -- to build a more just, sustainable world.

Three more #Plan4Resilience paintings are planned for coming months, including "Plant A Seed for Change" by Candice Foster, at the Cannery. 

Thanks so much to the City of Davis for funding this project, the artists who've shared their gifts, the I-House, and to my son, Raul Sierra, who inspired this series of murals when he asked to paint a temporary mural on Earth Day.  That mural got washed away in May rains, but a glimpse of it is recorded in photos below.

"2 Futures, You Choose", by Raul Sierra and Danielle Fodor, North Davis

About #Plan4Resilience

Each of the artists funded in the #Plan4Resilience project has been economically impacted by the pandemic.  The #Plan4Resilience project uses a model of mutual aid: artists help us imagine a better world and promote mental health, while getting a few days of paid work at a living wage. We can support each other -- with meaningful work that builds a better tomorrow -- through green jobs, including, but not limited to: caregiving, eco-construction, health care, and creative work.  If you'd like to donate to the artists in this project, you can donate online here, and I'll share your "artist tip" with the team of painters and change-makers in #Plan4Resilience.

#Plan4Resilience is funded, in part, by a generous grant from the City of Davis Arts & Cultural Affairs Program.