Triangle Neighbors Paint the Town

Or at least one whole street of it.

groundSPARK, the Raleigh Street Painting Festival, will be held September 19-21 in City Market, Moore Square Art District. Sponsored by Visual Art Exchange, this free and open-to-the-public event is part of SPARKcon, both a local talent showcase and a series of workshops to capture ideas about the creative future of the Triangle area of North Carolina.

The event won't just involve letting the kids loose with those oversize pastel chalk sticks on the asphalt (though they'll be a space for that, too). City Market will be filled with over 400 artists actually painting the street, using Martin Street in Moore Square as their canvas. The artists will have only 27 hours to complete their work and will work alongside graffiti artists, fashion designers and musicians to transform Downtown Raleigh into a work of art.

The Raleigh event reminds us in Winston that while we're unafraid to boldly dream of bridges and immovable legacies through public art and design, public art can also be joyously immediate and celebratory, even for a brief moment of time and space. It's a reflection of life - a mix of poof and gone, treasured and transcendent.