Fine Arts

Mural My Neighborhood

 216.664.2562 - Weekdays 8 am to 5 pm

Each summer this program teams young Cleveland artists with professional muralists, community leaders, and business owners to create beautiful, uplifting murals depicting civic pride, vibrant city life, and visions of hope in specific neighborhoods. Young artists are required to interview with a parent and will be expected to show examples of their work. Those selected who complete the program receive $150 stipends. Although the program runs from February through mid-August, interviews are conducted year-round.

Developing Creativity in Youth

Each summer this program teams young Cleveland artists with professional muralists, community leaders, and business owners to create beautiful, uplifting murals in two different wards. The murals depict civic pride, vibrant city life, and visions of hope. 

Mural My Neighborhood Participation Details

216.664.2562 - Weekdays 8 am to 5 pm

Business owners desiring murals may call for further information. Young artists are required to interview with a parent and will be expected to show examples of their work. Those completing the program receive $300 stipends.

Program Sponsors

Grants from:

• The George Gund Foundation,
• The Bruening Foundation,
• The Dominion Foundation,  
• Cuyahoga Arts & Culture,
• The Thomas White Foundation,
• The Fox Foundation,
• The Sherwin Williams Company

The sponsers fund the twice-weekly after-school classes and field trips, as well as the stipends youth participants receive. Classes are held at Cudell Fine Arts Center and Earle B. Turner Center.

A Walk Down East 185th Street

Location: Helping Hands Daycare- 798 East 185th Street

Completed: August, 2010

Content: Painted with brush strokes and airbrush, A Walk Down East 185th Street is a panel mural that adorns the 53 foot wide wall of the Helping Hands Daycare, a fixture in North Collinwood for the past twenty years. The mural is a fantastic collage of oversized images associated with the favorite spots these pre-school children enjoy visiting as they saunter down historic East 185th Street.

The mural teems with images that appeal to little children and the child in each of us: an enormous ice cream come, a giant muffin with pink icing, pizza with golden cheese and pepperonis the size of dish plates. Blazing in red is the spicy hot Mr. Chile, which has now become the logo for the neighborhood’s Mexican restaurant.

Mural Artists: Keaf Holliday, Ni’kole Robinson

Celebration of Recreation 

Location: John F. Kennedy Recreation Center- 1700 Harvard Avenue

Completed: September, 2009

Content: The Celebration of Recreation mural spans a width of 90 feet and reaches to a height of 8 ½ feet, covering the poured concrete wall that fronts the John F. Kennedy Recreation Center. The mural celebrates the vibrant traditional and non-traditional activities happening in Cleveland recreation centers.

The mural depicts twenty eight types of recreation programs, and all but four are painted in large solid color blocks that flow in a wave-like fashion across the wall. Four rectangular fine art renderings of the visual arts, aquatics, baseball, and basketball, stand out in sharp contrast to the rest of the mural” 

Mural Artists:John Troxell, Ni’kole Robinson

RTA: Past, Present, Future

Location: Walkway under the Madison/West 117 th RTA Station

Completed: November, 2007

Content: The RTA transportation mural shows a historical timeline of RTA’s history in Cleveland, moving from the distant past to the far reaching future. The future representations were conceived by children in the program and then projected into the mural.

Mural Artists:Meg Garbincus, Pam Griffith