Over the weekend, the “Wallybug” that our partners at MyWallingford last week wrote about got its annual fresh coat of paint just as neighbors in another part of Wallingford moved closer toward the project that will result in both the neighborhood’s and the city’s second painted intersection.
Neighbors at Interlake Avenue North and North 41st Street are just a few weeks away from painting a giant turtle on the middle of their intersection, but they couldn’t have done it without the help of longtime Maple Leaf resident Rachel Marcotte, the artist behind the design.
Because she’s primarily a botanical artist, she designed a colorful turtle swimming through swirls of seaweed, but you’re going to have to wait to see it until the project takes place sometime in August.
“It’s not really on the main traffic route,” Marcotte added. “You’ll have to try a little bit to go see it.”
She expects the intersection to be closed for two days for her and a few artist friends to transfer an outline of her design in chalk to the much larger scale of the intersection, and then it will become a sort of “paint-by-numbers” for the rest of the volunteers to help fill in.
“I’m not sure exactly how that will work, but I’ve got analytical minds working on that at the moment,” she said. Although Marcotte was recruited because “they don’t have any artists in the immediate neighborhood,” they do, however, have plenty of engineers, both working and retired, who first made a map of the intersection to scale to help her plan the design, and now are designing a giant graph to help Marcotte properly transfer the turtle.
Marcotte became involved in the project when a good friend of hers who has been involved with both street painting projects, Bill Lindberg, asked her to submit a design, which the neighborhood liked.
And although she now works full time at the Edmonds PCC, she has a degree in design and has never strayed far from her art.
“I come from a very artistic family,” Marcotte said. “I can’t not create art, it’s just a part of my brain that has to be engaged otherwise I feel unbalanced.”
And projects like this one are especially dear to her.
“It’s always been a priority to make art a part of our lives and to participate in public art projects whenever possible,” Marcotte said of her family. “That’s why it really excited me to put art where it’s a part of everyday life.”
So where is the ideal place in Maple Leaf for a painted intersection? There are a few rules to consider: At least 60% of the nearby residents have to approve the project, and they also have to agree to not only organize the project but also to maintain it over the years.
It also can’t be on an arterial, which rules out Roosevelt Way, and Fifth and 15th Avenues Northeast. And ideally, such a project would only be planned for an intersection that didn’t already have a traffic circle or other traffic-calming device.
And although slowing down traffic is one reason to create such a project, there’s much more to it than that.
“It makes people slow down and look and take pride in their neighborhood,” Marcotte added.
Where would you like to see a painted intersection?
I think we could really do such a thing in Maple Leaf. It takes a great deal of organizational work, though. Ideally, one team of neighbors to work out the technical details, one person to stay in contact with SDOT constantly by email and phone, one team to go door to door and circulate/collect information on the project. Another person to compile an email list and keep everyone informed… this is what the Wallingford neighbors are doing enthusiastically and it’s working out well. I think they are wishing they’d started the whole process last January though… it takes some time!
I’d LOVE to have this big bold colorful images in our neighborhood. These are great.