City, Road Home Invite Residents to Help Complete Mural

Residents were invited to help finish off a mural at The Road Home Thursday. Photo: Gephardt Daily/ Kurt Walter

SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH – November 5, 2015 (Gephardt Daily) Residents were invited to join The Road Home and Salt Lake City officials to complete the homeless shelter’s new art mural Thursday.

The mural, which is both indoor and outdoor, is 700 feet long and eight feet tall. Artists participating include The Salt Lake Tribune cartoonist Pat Bagley.

Over the past six weeks, local artists working with Road Home residents have been designing and painting the mural on the outside and inside walls of the facility’s playground area. Organizers then invited the public to sign the final wall before the mural is officially complete.

Spokesman Chris Peterson from Sorenson Unity Center, who is also one of the artists, said the mural fence stretches all the way around the playground, and continues inside. “We are especially pleased with how the inside feels more safe, and fosters imagination for kids as well,” he said. “An artist has been hired twice a week to work with families and single adults, to paint images on the inside as a kind of art therapy wall. On the outside it’s a great tool to bring some color and vitality to this corner.

“We hope the wall will continue to evolve over time. It gives the families living here a chance to experience the joy and fun that comes with dipping your brush in some beautiful bright colored paint and doing what your imagination tells you to do.

“I hope that people from all over the city would feel that this addition to the neighborhood would open their eyes to some of the issues of homelessness, and engage. I’ve had numerous experiences while working on this when my heart has broken. It’s a way for more people to access the issue.”

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