In July of 2011, I was an artist in residence for the Arts Place Arts in the Park program. I facilitated Paint the Town, which was a week long chalk art series. Paint the Town also included an intro project in June and a closing project in August. Children of all ages helped transform the sidewalks of St. Marys into vibrant murals.

We learned:

• to work collaboratively with a variety of age groups.
• that creating art can be time consuming and hard work.
• that the community appreciated and valued their creations.
• that participating in community art projects can be fun and worth the effort.
• the best techniques for creating vibrant sidewalk chalk murals.
  

On a few days, we worked on sidewalks outside of local businesses downtown. On these days, we worked with themes related to the business we were in front of. The business owners greatly appreciated our beautification. They provided much praise. One business owner paid us with candy!

The closing project in August did not include registration. Instead, I went into the St. Marys' Memorial Park and started working. At the same time, Summerfest kids events were happening. This project resulted in the most community participation of the series with a vast variance in ages participating. Each sidewalk square included several different artists. As community members would see what was happening, they would pick up some chalk and start on their additions. This was a great way to close the Paint the Town series!