Fort Oglethorpe’s Thriving Communities team hosting chalk art event March 18
Fort Oglethorpe’s Thriving Communities team will hold a popup chalk art event at Gilbert-Stephenson Park on Sunday, March 18, as a precursor to its planned project to have historical 3-D artwork throughout town.
The Thriving Communities initiative is made up of a group of volunteers who are working with Thrive Regional Partnership and the Lyndhurst Foundation to develop economic strategies of how to build on the city’s arts and culture.
Team member Chris McKeever, who works as director of the city’s historic 6th Cavalry Museum, explained the group’s art plans with the mayor and City Council on Monday, Feb. 26.
“We have spent a lot of time with surveys, talking to community members, and just trying to find out what makes Fort Oglethorpe distinctive and unique from everybody else,” McKeever said. “We’re a relatively young town; 69 years is not a long time for a town. We don’t have the county seat, we don’t have the courthouse square, or a lot of the things that other cities rally around to get their identity. ... We don’t have any of that. We do have something in our community that nobody in the country can claim, and that is from Civil War through World War II, we have military history within a 8-10 mile radius and there’s not another location in the country with that, so that is what we’ve decided needs to be our distinctive play.”
McKeever says the long-term goal is to have professional artists paint historical 3-D images in certain locations throughout the city’s parks and walking trails, so locals and visitors can have a local art walk to go to where they can take photo with the area’s history involved.
“We want people to say ‘did you see what Fort Oglethorpe did, we need to go look,’ and that’s why the 3-D painted images are so cool,” McKeever said. “Imagine there is a military tank that your kids can go and sit on, and you can take their picture and it looks like they’re sitting on a real tank. That’s what we’re hoping will become our distinctive play. It’s arts and culture, but also it will tell the history and make it something that we’re very proud of.”
Having the art walk in areas people frequent the most is the group’s idea for helping spread the excitement about the project.
“When you think about where people gather in Fort Oglethorpe, it’s the park, it’s to play recreation for the kids, and it’s our walking trails,” McKeever said. “So, if we’re going to do public art, that’s where we need to do these things.”
The March 18 chalk art event is a way to generate interest in the art walk project by giving residents and local artist the chance to not only show off their skills, but also gauge interest in art walk project. McKeever says the group is working on a grant proposal to the Lyndhurst Foundation to fund the first part of the art walk when the time comes.
“We will continue to work with Lyndhurst and come up with a grant proposal that they’ll fund so that at the end of this we’ll receive the $20,000 grant to do public works of art,” McKeever said. “We have miles and miles of walking trails, so $20,000 isn’t going to put art everywhere we want to, but this is going to be the kickoff point. We’re very excited about where this process is going to take us. There are a lot of possibilities with this.”
McKeever explained that down the road, when specific images and locations are decided on, a sealant is placed over the artwork to keep it in place over time.
City Council members were very enthusiastic about the possibility of having future art images throughout town.
“It sounds awesome,” Councilwoman Paula Stinnett said. “I look forward to seeing the places and selections.”
The chalk art event will take place from 2-5 p.m. on March 18. Interested parties can contact the Thriving Communities group via email at Fort.o.thriving. communities@ gmail.com for more information.