Welcome to the alphabet soup of city departments and community service nonprofits. Only one of the abbreviations above is an acronym. Can you guess which? The one that is most commonly pronounced as a word organizational jargon is far from the purpose of this article rather, it’s to explain the roles that each of these organizations has played and continues to play in collaboration with community volunteers to restore and preserve the neighborhood mural in Wilshire Park.
But first some history about the mural: In 2008 BWNA contacted Peggy Kendellen, Public Art Manager for the Regional Arts & Culture Council (RACC), to look into the possibility of securing a matching grant to fund the painting of a community mural on a 10’ x 15’ wall in the enclosed area of the Wilshire Park pavilion. BWNA was awarded the grant on the condition that it commit itself to a “MOU” (Memo of Understanding) with RACC and Portland Parks & Recreation (PP & R), pledging to maintain the mural for the next 5 years. The commitment made, neighborhood artist Anna Garibay (who now lives in SE Portland) was hired to design and paint the mural, which depicts “a mother and child in a natural environment reflecting the adjacent play area of the park, as well as their relationship with the watershed and adjacent city.” The mural became an instant neighborhood favorite among kids and adults alike; but in subsequent years, it drew attention from graffiti vandals as well. Community volunteers did their best to remove the tagging and touch up the mural from time to time, but the task eventually proved too challenging for amateurs, and PP & R and Portland City Graffiti Abatement (GA) professionals had to be called on to get the job done. Finally last spring, PP & R informed BWNA that it would no longer have funding available to rid the mural of future graffiti tagging, and that’s when the current Wilshire Park Mural Preservation Project was launched.
The plan that emerged was based on input by representatives from the BWNA Board, B-W residents, volunteer artists, GA, RACC, PP & R, and Central Northeast Neighbors (CNN). The mural would be refurbished by volunteer artists (led by original mural artist Anna Garibay), then professionally coated with a quality permanent protection product that would enable neighborhood volunteers to wipe off graffiti tagging by hand with the use of a solvent, thus bypassing the need for expensive professional intervention. But where would the funding come from? The permanent protective coating and application by a GA contractor was estimated to cost well over $1000, which BWNA’s budget could not accommodate. That’s when CNN Director Alison Stoll came up with a funding solution. Knowing that CNN’s coalition of neighborhood associations had not used up graffiti abatement grant funds provided by the Office of Neighborhood Involvement (ONI), Director Stoll simply proposed to the CNN Board that the remaining money be transferred to Beaumont-Wilshire for completion of its mural preservation project, and all agreed. Additionally, GA contributed a motion-activated monitoring camera for the site.
As a result, BWNA has entered into a new 5-year MOU with RACC and PP & R. If you’d like to help out with implementation, contact president@bwna.us (ASAP).