At the start of the month, the long-abandoned Mansion Inn in downtown Sacramento was filled with almost twenty artists between the ages of 14 and 18. Throughout the day, the high schoolers injected new life into the 1950s era hotel – empty white walls became blank canvases that were slowly filled with colorful words and images.
“CRE8,” read one wall. “Dance is a language,” said another. In front of a bold graffiti “STRIVE,” a two dancers twisted and turned their bodies across the plywood floor.
The Mansion Inn has lay abandoned and empty for the past decade. That all changed this summer when creator Marisa Kolokotronis, a St. Francis alumni, executed her idea to showcase an immersive visual and performing arts exhibit and festival on the hotel’s barren walls before the hotel gets torn down and a new one takes its place.
Tearing Walls Apart began in early August with an application process, but Kolokotronis said her plan began last November and took months to put to put together. She did so with the help of many local sponsors, like Leave Your Mark Sacramento, The Grupe Company, and SKK Developments.
The show was available to all students in the County of Sacramento. It appealed to Sacramentan artists of all shapes, sizes, and mediums. Each team, of up to six members, was assigned to a room and had total creative control of the room and could decorate it any way they pleased as long as it coincided with the overarching theme of unity.
Read the full article here.
At the start of the month, the long-abandoned Mansion Inn in downtown Sacramento was filled with almost twenty artists between the ages of 14 and 18. Throughout the day, the high schoolers injected new life into the 1950s era hotel – empty white walls became blank canvases that were slowly filled with colorful words and images.
“CRE8,” read one wall. “Dance is a language,” said another. In front of a bold graffiti “STRIVE,” two dancers twisted and turned their bodies across the plywood floor.
This display was only a sneak peek of what’s to come. This September, high school students will have the opportunity to leave their artistic fingerprints on each of the Mansion Inn’s 46 rooms before the hotel is renovated, thanks to an initiative called Tearing Walls Apart.
Read the full article here.
More than 150 muralists and street artists descended Saturday on The Sacramento Bee’s parking garage for Wide Open Walls’ Street Art Mural Jam.
Artists, food trucks, and loud pop music filled the top of the garage and surrounding sidewalks, feeling much more like a block party than an art festival.
A development group led by Sotiris Kolokotronis purchased The Bee’s garage in December 2016 for $5.7 million, according to an earlier Bee report. The art created will no longer be accessible when work begins on The Press, a 273-unit apartment building on the site. But the fleeting nature of the art didn’t make the opportunity any less exciting for artists.
“This was a great opportunity a few weeks ago when they said that The Sacramento Bee parking lot wasn’t going to be there in a few months, and they gave us the opportunity to paint here,” said Ten Blair, a participating artist. “Everybody has a different style and they invited everybody from emerging artists to international artists, so when you walk around you get everything. Street Art Global, pretty much.”
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Since 1987, SKK Developments has been building vibrant communities in the Greater Sacramento area and through the Pacific Northwest, so it’s no surprise their new location on L Street is equally exciting. Read the full article here: SKK Development’s Office Space