The Game of Life - Sidewalk Painting
This year's ArtPrize extended its reach into new neighborhoods, including our Creston business district on the city's north side.
To encourage people to come visit our community and give them a nice experience when they do, we painted the sidewalks along Plainfield Ave. in bright and happy colors!
Our Lions & Rabbits artists have painted all the murals here on Plainfield and many of the ones downtown as part of our After Dark program. This new feature will both complement and extend the work we've already done in the area.
A Colorful Journey
We began by preparing the sidewalks — pulling weeds and sweeping up dirt, rocks, and cigarette butts. This not only makes a better surface to paint, but it also makes a cleaner and safer space for everyone to walk.
We then colored each sidewalk panel according to the assigned pattern of orange, blue, green, and yellow, with red surrounding the unpainted driveways to provide pedestrians an obvious and safe stopping point to watch for traffic.
The sidewalk game is a fun way to encourage people to explore parts of the city they've never been to before. It's a delightfully simple way to beautify this busy street and positively impact the surrounding area.
Play The Game!
The painted sidewalks represent the L&R After Dark: Board Game, a customized edition of The Game of Life. In our 'arts of Grand Rapids' themed version of the game, players pass by the city's landmarks, stopping at your favorite local restaurants and small businesses to spend money while learning important lessons about artistic careers and the economics of the city.
In the lending library boxes outside our gallery doors, we provide dice and scorecards for you to be the moving piece in our life-sized game. As you walk down the sidewalk, you and your family will learn more about our neighborhood and all the wonderful restaurants and businesses we have here.
Scan the orange QR code to play!
A Brighter Community
This mile-long sidewalk painting is an excellent way to encourage more people to visit our Creston business district and learn about the area. With more people visiting our neighborhood, we hope to see increased business for our local restaurants and shops.
For the volunteers, it was a chance to work together and experience the joys of using art to serve a community. For our neighbors and us, it's an attractive addition that uplifts our moods and will bring more foot traffic to our businesses, bringing more life and happiness into this community we love so much.
Stop by our gallery to buy the home-edition board game we created last year, or pick up some dice at the lending library box outside to play in real life!
