The Reverberations Crosswalks #2 is a pavement mural that enhances pedestrian safety for children and residents walking to and from Margaret Brent Elementary/Middle School while celebrating the school’s art education focus. Located at 26th and Calvert Streets in central Baltimore, the artistic crosswalk features large scale icons in white representing the arts, love, and beauty, surrounded by reverberating outlines on top of a base layer of angled shapes in eye-catching colors, including turquoise, orange, lime green, and salmon red. The symbols and colors that make up the design are inspired by drawings created by students during a workshop held at the school in June 2018 and installed with the help of local volunteers. The icons include a crayon, music note, book, paint brush, microphone, heart, and flower.
Graham Projects worked closely with the Friends of Margaret Brent, Live Baltimore, Margaret Brent Elementary/Middle School, the Harwood Community Association, the Charles Village Civic Association, and Baltimore City Department of Transportation (DOT) to design, approve, and install the public artwork. In facilitating a community-based design process, Graham Projects co-led a drawing workshop with students to generate visual themes that were integrated into three designs proposed to community members at several public meetings. The Reverberations design was selected based on community feedback and votes tallied.
In the wake of an unexpected wall collapse on the adjacent block, Graham Projects collaborated with the Charles Village Civic Association to effectively advocate for DOT to construct safety-enhancing, poured-concrete bumpouts on all four corners of the intersection as part of the larger wall reconstruction project. Bumpouts are sidewalk extensions that slow cars and make it safer for people to cross. The artwork is made with custom colors of federally-specified traffic paint mixed with a traction-enhancing aggregate. The colorful, art-filled bumpouts enhance safety by attracting pedestrians to activate their street crossing and drawing the attention of passing motorists to the pedestrians’ safety needs and right-of-way.
Over the course of one weekend, local volunteers, including children, parents, and neighborhood artists, physically invested their labor into the project by assisting with painting the intersection. Graham Projects’ professional installation team included lead public artist Graham Coreil-Allen, and artist assistants Q Batts, Vilde Ulset, and Melvin Thomas. Drone photography by Baltimore Aerials.
