The message taking form this week at North Prince and West Chestnut streets is different depending on where you stand.
From Chestnut, across from the Post Office, the last few letters of the word “influence” are shown.
From Prince Street, across from the Pennsylvania College of Art & Design, the letters will form “create.”
“This is what we do inside the building across the street,” said college President Mary Colleen Heil.
There was a learning curve when Lancaster city hired its first two public arts managers — the first from Colorado and the second from Indiana.
Tracy Beyl, who took over the position this month, needs no introduction to the arts in Lancaster nor to the city’s program. She was there at its inception.
Beyl moved less than three blocks to the City Hall post from her former office at the Pennsylvania College of Art & Design.
It was there that Beyl was involved in establishing the college’s mural resource project a decade ago. That initial effort was to provide resources to people in the community who wanted to create public art. It later was expanded from murals to all public artworks.
What had been a large, blank wall outside the Spanish American Civic Association’s El Centro Hispano has become a reflection of the community.
Pictured on a new mural, the installation of which was completed last week, are depictions of 28 people. Some of them work inside the center that serves Lancaster city’s Hispanic community. Some of them helped establish SACA, and some helped establish the city’s Hispanic community six decades ago.
“It’s a record,” Carlos Graupera, SACA executive director, said of the 30-foot tall mural. “It’s a way to respect what happened in this community.”
Graupera, whose image is at the far end of the painted fabric mural, said the depictions include people who came to Lancaster from Cuba, the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico. It also includes many who were born in Lancaster of immigrant parents.
Read more: http://lancasteronline.com/article/local/666429_SACA-remembrance.html#ixzz1xV3mSNld
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