- Judy, I wanna ask you the first question.

First, I wanna give the audience, what's a little bit of your creative background.

- Sure.

Thanks for having us.

My background, I'm currently the Director of public art, and placemaking at The Arts Center of the Capital Region.

I've been there about a year, but I've been in the public art field for over 20 years.

- Wow.

- Which is crazy.

And I started that work at NYU, I moved to Philadelphia where I worked for the mural program there, and I still do a lot of work for them.

So I'm very connected to that program, which is amazing.

And then I moved here, and one of the first projects I worked on in this region, was Breathing Lights, which was a very large, regional public art program, funded through the Bloomberg philanthropies, and incredible opportunity for me to get to know local artists.

But after that I was hired by the City of Troy and The Arts Center to create the master plan for public art for the city of Troy.

And that's where I really started thinking about public art, in the context of Troy specifically.

And so that was a project where over a year, a consultant friend and I talked to over a thousand people in Troy, to really see what folks in Troy wanted to see in terms of art and how art could really help in Troy specifically.

And one of the resounding answers we kept getting from people was murals, more murals.

Why aren't murals happening in Troy?

They're happening in Glens Falls or Albany.

Fast forward five years, and a year ago, The Arts Center received two really large grants, one from the state of New York, through the Downtown Revitalization Initiative, and another grant through the City of Troy, through the American Recovery Plan Act, ARPA, for just public art.

And so we could really start to implement some of these things that came out of the plan.

So when I started about a year ago, there was some really cool things already happening, but we really wanted to think about, how we could start a mural program, that was a little different than what was happening in other cities in the region.

So we started doing research, and we came across a program in Oklahoma of all places, which isn't really known for public art, but once we started looking, there was an incredible program down there called Plaza Walls and Liz Reese, the Director of The Arts Center, and I traveled to Oklahoma to see this program in action.

And we went to Tulsa, to Oklahoma City, and to Miami, Oklahoma, which is right on the the edge of the Cherokee reservation, and saw what they had done, which has rolled out this statewide mural program, starting in Oklahoma City, with a program that basically created an arts district with temporary murals.

And we just were like, this is exactly what Troy needs.

- This is what we gotta do.

- Exactly.

- Which is Troy Art Block.

- Exactly.

So we came back and we said, "We wanna do this, we wanna call it Troy Art Block."

We started looking for a location, and we settled on Church Street.

And fast forward a few months later, on October 14th, after a week of working with 29 artists, including Lowe and tons of business owners and partners, we've created an open air gallery, in two blocks in downtown Troy with 29 murals.

And it's just been an incredible journey, and now we're really excited to program that.

- Oh, heck yeah.

And I love it.

It's beautiful.

And LO, you're one of the muralist artists.

Give us a brief background of your creative endeavors, or who are you as an artist, and then how did you find this project?

- So my art career actually is very recent, and I would say that my art has been woven into my life, and story in pieces.

But it wasn't until recently that I started to work on it.

I actually found the Detroit art block, in a very unexpected way.

Actually, my grandfather passed about two months ago, and it was actually the funeral, the evening of my grandfather's funeral, that I found I just, I couldn't sleep.

I found it on my phone, I was scrolling, and I came upon the application, and it shows also the application.

It's so welcoming.

So I was like...

I wasn't even thinking, I just started applying.

And I've never applied for anything art related before.

So I just started, and a couple weeks later, a month later, I got an email from Judy I think.

And I was just like, "Wait, this is actually happening?"

And going back to my art career, which has only been a couple years honestly, I have been diving into different types of media.

I would call myself an interdisciplinary artist, meaning that I use various disciplines, and connect them together relationally.

And I feel like they affect each other.

So I've done things from installations recently, and to paintings and I've done sculpture, and furniture design and things like that, in my creative process and research.

But by the grace of God, I found my path, and purpose through it all.

- That's amazing.

And as an emerging artist, how has art been fulfilling to this current journey of yours?

- Specifically through this season, for me, it's definitely been healing for me.

And I say that in a way, that it's allowed me to discover more about myself, and beyond myself.

And it's been wonderful to see art is truly a gift.

- It really is.

- And knowing that, and living it out is a whole other feeling, and a whole other...

I can't even explain how it's changed my life.

- Hey, I get that.

I feel the same way.

I really do.

And Judy, this project was huge, 29 muralists.

So what were some of your challenges with this?

- I mean, it was huge.

I think the biggest challenge was how quickly we had to move once we got our locations.

So it was all the normal logistics, but it was just moving so quickly, and really wanting to keep the integrity of the project, which was not just to get the murals up, but to make sure that we were creating a community for the artists.

The Arts Center has a mission about teaching, and so it wasn't just to get the murals produced, but to create a community, and to really create mentorships among the artists.

So we were very thoughtful from the application process onward about how to make the experience for the artists, as well as for a future audience.

And so we did things like make the application process easy.

We wanted to curate where the artists were gonna be, so that they could be mentored by some of the artists, who had been doing this a lot longer.

And quite honestly for me, one of the biggest challenges was to just let artists do what they wanted and not have to pre-approve... - Freedom.

- Their images, yeah.

To give them that freedom and we had to do that, because when it's moving so quickly, we wouldn't have time to approve 29 artists' concepts, nor would we want to get in the middle of building owners approving those.

And so what again we had, we'd learned from the Oklahoma program, was to give artists that freedom to go off of their portfolio and to really trust them to show up as their best selves and see what they create.

And that was for me, very challenging as a curator, but sometimes, a good curator just gets outta the way.

- Yeah.

- And I think facilitates the magic that the artist can bring to the project, which is I think what happened.

- That's amazing.

And besides an accessible application, what were some other ways you supported artists throughout this project?

- Sure.

I mean, we tried very hard to make sure that we were in communication with artists, that we made sure that they felt thanked, and it wasn't transactional, that they felt like what they were doing was really more about giving to the city their incredible gifts.

So I think just setting the stage, for making sure it didn't feel transactional, like sometimes work for hire can.

We had a big thank you dinner for the artists.

And again, I think we just tried to create, somewhat of a community so that artists could get to know each other.

And I think one of my goals is to really start building that connective tissue among artists so that public art isn't just about making spaces beautiful, it's about creating a real desire in this region for more art in more places, and to let artists be change makers, and leaders in some of the biggest, exciting things happening.

So just trying to create that connective tissue.

- That's really, really important.

I would think you would agree as well, right?

Yeah.

So LO I have a question for you.

What was your highlight of this project?

Hearing all the positive things you have to say, I wanna know your golden moments.

- There's a lot.

There's a lot.

This is my first mural, first.

- [Jade] Wow.

- That's a big highlight for me and my career, my life.

- And it's beautiful.

- It is.

- Thank you so much.

- It's one of my favorites.

- Thank you so much.

One of the major highlights I would say is the mentorship, and the friendships that I've gained.

I joke about it, I mentioned that it felt like I was at camp, mural camp, and all these artists came together, and we became friends for the week, and then it got sad and we had to leave, and say goodbye to each other.

But it was so wonderful.

I learned so much from so many, artists, so many people, that are in the community in general.

And also the people coming by, and walking by that are part of the community itself.

I think it's such a beautiful thing because I had just moved here.

I used to live here, I moved back, and it was wonderful to see the connection, 'cause I was craving that connection with the community again.

And also the art community.

So it was, match made in heaven, perfect.

So getting to talk with people in the community, and how it's affecting them, it was a wonderful thing to hear.

And lastly, the creative freedom.

The creative freedom that we got to express.

Since, like I said, it was a healing process for me, and getting to like lay it out there.

This is my first piece I got to create since I moved back.

So it's been six months.

So first personal piece, and what an honor that it was at Troy Art Block.

- Yeah.

You're leaving your mark in your place that you hopefully love.

Troy's great.

I love it.

It's very artistic, and I do appreciate all the work all these organizations, are doing locally to foster a community of creatives.

That's so important for me specifically as an artist.

And I know it's very important for you both.

So before we wrap up, what's some stuff you both have going on, Judy?

What's going on at The Arts Center that you want audiences to know about?

- Well, we're doing two really big planning processes, with both communities in south Troy as well as Lansingburgh, which are outside of downtown, both of them to do public art in neighborhoods as well.

And so we're really excited to roll those out next year.

- That's amazing.

What about you LO?

You got anything going on that you want the audience to know about?

- I have a couple personal projects that'll come up soon, hopefully.

And right now I'm actually focusing a lot of writing, and also illustrating for children's books.

- Oh, yay.

Children's books.

Yes.

We have to sit and talk about that.

I want to try to do the same thing.

Well, thank you both for sitting down and speaking to us, and really giving us some background on that amazing project.

Thank you.

- Thank you.

- Thank you so much.