Painting the Community Symbolic Tree

This year, I received the Individual Artist Commission Grant from the CNY Arts 2014 Decentralization Program to engage Onondaga County residents in an interactive art project that promotes nature appreciation and community involvement in artistic creation. 

The CREATION OF THE COMMUNITY SYMBOLIC TREE is the second element of this art project and I serve as the artistic director and guide the residents of our community in depicting the creative vision of Onondaga County.

My goal for the second element is to promote harmony and a feeling of identity and purpose among the members of our community, as well as to share the right techniques on how to successfully execute a painting.

For the creation of the community Symbolic Tree, each Saturday morning for 5 months beginning in April, I set up the canvas in a participating library in Onondaga County and invite its residents to sign up to participate in the painting process (email me to sign up).

Saturday, May 31st and Saturday, June 7th I set up the Community Symbolic Tree respectively at the Fairmount Community Library and at the Maxwell Memorial Library. The following photo gallery will show you how these seven Onondaga county residents were all essential in positively shaping this painting.

At the Fairmount Community Library, Marylin L. Marcy wrote the word Pompey on the tree-map of Onondaga county, Dan Elsbey highlighted the upper left branches of the tree and Linda Helles finished the underpainting of the hills in the mid section.

At the Maxwell Memorial Library, in Camillus, NY I had two professional artists, Shailesh Joshi and Mick Mather (http://mickmathersartblog.tumblr.com/) add tremendously to this community painting. Shailesh painted the lushes grass and stones in the foreground and Mick sensibly created the underpainting of the far away mountains on the background. Then librarian, Rena Brower and Onondaga resident, Theresa Stachurski painted the words Spafford and Skaneateles on the tree-map. At the very end of this event abstract artist, Linda Bigness stopped by to give some constructive criticism to improve the overall harmony of this painting suggesting to have some residents add some branches on the right side of the tree.

If you want to help, join me this Saturday, June 14th at the Baldwinsville Public Library. To sign up  email me at mariarizzoart@gmail.com.