Sunday Washington Post: Front Page Story on Public Art

We always knew that public art deserved to be on the front page. The Aug 23, Sunday Washington Post covers the new DC mural, “From Edgewood to the Edge of the World,” created by public art non-profit Albus Cavus and supported by the DC Commission on Arts and Humanities.

Let Us Spray, Five artists have just painted the District’s largest-ever mural, by Reporter Dan Zak and Photographer Megan Rossman, tells the story of the art from the artists’ perspective. Click on the online version of the story to listen to Artists Pose 2 and Joshua Mays discuss how people will view the mural and how they approached their creative process.

“The artwork is just amazing,” says Wayne Sumpter, 52, who lives on nearby Channing Street and cuts behind the Rhode Island Avenue Shopping Center nearly every day. “It definitely gets your attention. It wakes you up. When I come through here I’m not thinking about a lot, but the wall stopped me. It pulls you to it.”

The mural, titled “From Edgewood to the Edge of the World,” will pull focus from many directions, from many kinds of people. People will see it from the Metro, the parking lot, the train tracks, as they return home to the Edgewood Terrace public housing complex, as they use the Metropolitan Branch Trail, a planned bike-and-walking path that will skirt the mural on its way from Silver Spring to Union Station. People will see it in spite of nearby trash-strewn ditches, in spite of parked cars with smashed windows, in spite of the fact that they may only ever see it at a distance, from behind Metro plexiglass.

Massey Media worked over the summer to assist Albus Cavus tell its story of how the group created the capital’s largest mural. Albus Cavus worked with 40 young people from the Mayor’s Summer Youth Employment Program and guided them to develop plans, engage community members, and build the skills necessary to tackle a huge public art program. Massey Media pitched in to offer spokesperson skills and “press pitch call” training to the group, giving them phone call lists and scripts. We issued eight press releases and treated the mural project as though it were a campaign to bring more public art to the city, and it worked. The Edgewood mural project was covered by all four local TV station, WAMU (twice), WPFW (twice), the Washington Post (three times), the Current Newspapers, El Pregonero, Associated Press, Washington Examiner, Cox broadcasting, Washington Hispanic, and the District Chronicles.