Green Lights a Go!

Good news! The mayor and the city’s art commission gave us “the green light” for our intersection art project. The design submitted by Fairhaven Middle School student Willow Hughes, won neighborhood and city approval. After approval Willow said, “I’m very excited about my art being chosen for the Happy Valley Community Crossroad project. Now a piece of my art can be presented to everyone, those who live in the Happy Valley neighborhood and others. I’m also excited that something I’m good at will make a difference in Bellingham.” With the weather turning wet and colder, it has been decided to plan on a spring 2014 paint day. This will allow us as a neighborhood to prepare, working with the city to determine logistics for the day, a paint day strategy, and festivity preparations.  If you are interested in helping organize the day, contact Aaron. But for now, hurray for another step toward a successful paint day!

Green Light from the Arts Commission!

Good news! Last night the city’s art commission gave us “the green light” for our intersection art project. It now goes to the mayor for final approval. Now we need to discern if we can paint this fall or if we should wait for the spring. Pray for a long stretch of dry weather!

There will be some steps that need to take place before paint day. If you want to help with the process let us know. But for now, hurray for another step toward a successful paint day!

Successful 1st Presentation to Arts Commission

Last night we presented our proposal to the city’s arts commission. It was a great meeting, where we were able to share our vision and hopes for our intersection mural project. The arts commission is a group of respected local artists entrusted with helping to bring quality art into the public arena. This group is a great resource for our city, and offered excellent suggestions to improve our project. Their primary suggestion to us was to involve a muralist to help bring our community approved design to scale on the pavement. Between now and our final presentation to the arts commission (in early October), we will be working with this muralist in how to successfully move the awesome design (by Willow) onto the street, where we as a neighborhood can paint together. All in all, we are excited to partner with the city in continuing to achieve our goal of bring neighbors together around cool stuff. Viva comunidad!

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Proposal Submitted!

Our proposal to the city has been submitted! After some great suggestions from Wendy, Michael, and Jeff, we turned our proposal into the Department of Public Works. They then passed it to the Arts Commission. It will be to the Arts Commission that we will give two presentations; the first presentation will be on September 3rd. After the second presentation in October, they will make a recommendation to the mayor.

As we wait for these presentations, we can take a breath and celebrate what we've accomplished thus far: moving a neighborhood desire into action, organizing all the pieces to create a solid proposal, and most importantly gathering together as neighbors and building relationships around a positive project. Here's to an already successful project!

Update From the City

Our intersection project is moving forward! Here's an update: We are now in the city's scheduling. After meeting with city planning, we got the thumbs up from public works. So now we need to enter the process with the Bellingham Arts Commission (BAC). We will present initially with BAC on September 3rd to conceptually discuss the project. Then on October 1st we'll make a final presentation. After they approve it goes to the mayor's desk, and we'll get approval within the week. This means two things: 1) our proposed painting day (Sept. 28th) will not happen, which is a bummer. We'll hopefully paint under a dry clear sky in mid October (pray not for rain), 2) that the city believes this is a viable, repeatable project, which is good news for Bellingham and building neighborhood connections. So, great things are happening. Thanks for your support and work!

We Have a Design!

We are proud to announce that we have a design! At our July 30^th meeting we had a great turn out of diverse neighbors. After two rounds of voting and eighteen designs to choose from, a design by Willow Hughes was chosen. Willow will be a 6^th grader at Fairhaven Middle School in the fall, coming from Larrabee Elementary. Way to go Willow!

The next step is to gather signatures from neighbors, approving of our proposal and the design. Then we will submit our proposal to the city. To help with this, join us on Thursday, August 8^th, from 6pm – 8pm at the Samish School (2113 Harris Ave.) for a potluck BBQ. Will show off the design, eat and visit together, and provide opportunities to look at and sign the proposal. So grab a friend and some food, and join us!

Here’s to our great neighborhood and doing cool things together!