Plant City Main Street, in collaboration with MAKE Plant City, has issued a call to artists for a project it is calling Paint Plant City. Artists are asked to submit designs for painted canvases that will be displayed on buildings throughout downtown Plant City for one year.
Canvases must be between 4’ (W) x 4’ (H) and 12’ (W) x 9’ (H). The art should be family-friendly and cannot include political content, religion, profanity, nudity or obscenities. Submissions will be accepted on a rolling basis, but the deadline is Wednesday, September 30.
According to Lizzette Sarria, design committee chair of Plant City Main Street, “All themes and styles are welcome. We want all pockets of the community represented in a way that best complements downtown Plant City.”
The plan is to select 10-15 entries. However, depending on funding, collaborators plan to install as many as possible.
Jerilyn Rumbarger, executive director of Plant City Main Street, explained, “When Plant City Main Street launched Topics on Tap, there were four areas identified as top things wanted in our downtown. One of them was to have murals again. Due to the city ordinances, we started looking at what other cities were doing in similar situations. This is how we found the Lakeland Tapestry project.”
Rumbarger added, “The Tapestries Lakeland project, organized by David Collins of The WA Studio, helped plant the idea for Paint Plant City. We customized the project to make it reflect the uniqueness of our downtown.”
Arley Smude, co-founder of MAKE Plant City, said, “In addition to adding splashes of art to downtown, we hope that the very public presence of this project will inspire people in the community to act on their own ideas for downtown. Paint Plant City is happening because people in the community are coming together to make it happen.”
Smude added, “Public art is there for everyone. It is free. You can view it alone or with a group, in the day or in the evening. It gives the community a certain aesthetic and openness that we hope will make people want to visit our downtown and view the beautiful artwork.”
Submissions can be made by visiting https://www.plantcitymainstreet.org/paintplantcity. If you have questions, please email PaintPlantCity@PlantCityMainStreet.com.
