April 13-May 13: City as Canvas with free art and innovation programs
May 11-12: Ticketed Music Festival with 50+ bands

Arts:

Hello Pluto, Good-bye Kitty

FACEBOOK invite here

A mural you can see from space... and created to send a hello from Charlottesville to Google Earth.

A group of artists and students, working under the direction of artist and professor Megan Marlatt, will be creating a large painting on an asphalt parking lot. Weather dependent; it should be ready for the festival weekend.

The creators of the mural, a group of artists and students known as “The Cardboard Collective”, include; Marie Bergeron, David Cook, Carmen Diaz, Shiry Guirguis, Margaret King, Brendan Morgan, Richard Robinson and Cherith Vaughan.

The painting on asphalt, titled “Hello Pluto, Good-bye Kitty” is based on the Edgar Allen Poe’s short story, “The Black Cat” and will be constructed on a large parking lot at the corner of Rt 29 and Westfield Road. Made up of hundreds of tar painted, one-eyed black cats on the asphalt, Pluto the cat in full form will only be visible from the air or Google Earth.

Upon completion of the painting, an opening reception will be held on Saturday, May 12, from 12:00 – 2:00. Warning: Too much rain in April may hinder progress of this project.

Megan Marlatt is an artist who resides in Orange, Virginia. Her public art and site-specific work includes a monumental digital banner The Hatter of Rockville for the City of Rockville, Maryland. She has created fresco murals at Emmanuel Episcopal Church in Virginia, St. Michael’s Episcopal in New Jersey, Charlottesville City Hall in Virginia and the Memphis College of Art in Tennessee. Non-traditional modes of realizing public art have included her temporary grass and asphalt paintings at the Hillwood Museum of Long Island University, Louisville Water Tower in Kentucky, DCAC in Washington, DC, and the Atlanta Arts Festival. Some of Marlatt’s past work has involved co-creating with communities and non-profits like City Arts Workshop, leading young and old artists in creating murals for their schools and community centers. These community collaborative murals were created at Casa P.R.A.C. in New Jersey and Washington House and C.P.E.#2 School, (both in New York.) She has brought this practice into her teaching as a professor at the University of Virginia, where her students have created about 15 major murals over the last 10 years for non-profit organizations, schools and municipalities. In addition, Marlatt has taught the technique of fresco painting several summers in Italy for U.Va. and Montserrat College of Art in Beverly, MA.

Schedule:

May 12:

Time: Event Venue: Price:
11:00 am Hello Pluto, Good-bye Kitty TBA

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