You are invited to…

A ‘street wall chalk painting’

When: 25th of July (last Sunday of this month), 1.30pm.
Where: In front of Dorka’s house, 101 Waterworks Road
What: Turn the wall into a colorful space around the theme “the street is there for everyone to share”

Bring your whole family, friends, children…chalk will be provided for a gold coin donation or alternatively bring your own.

No artistic skills required. Just come along, have some fun and get to know your neighbours!

If you are more ambitious and have a design in mind, sketch it on paper and put a grid over it (using rectangles 2cm by 4 cm) as the wall provides a natural grid with the bricks being 20cm by 40cm each. That way it is pretty easy to transfer a design to the wall.

We can start with the wall in front of our house and depending on how many enthusiastic hands turn up we can expand to the huge stretch of wall along Waterworks 109 walking towards the WW Reserve.

What’s the idea?

The inspiration for a street wall painting day came from a book I read, from David Engwicht “street reclaiming, creating livable and vibrant communities” .

He describes how once the street used to be more of a shared space to meet, to play and to celebrate. It was used by people, children, bikes, horses, cars alike. Nowadays streets are considered to be a space for cars only and a dangerous place for everyone else including animals. Climate change being the main challenge of our times, many people aim to reduce their use of cars, walk more, bike more and focus more on local community life. The street is becoming more of a shared space again.

A shift in our awareness needs to happen, to make the street a safer, more inviting space for everyone again, where we consider others and where we meet, play and experience community. In his book he calls this process “psychological reclaiming of the street”. The book is worth reading, available at the state library and full of great, fun ideas. Painting the walls can be one little step to build that awareness as well as building community.

Please don’t feel you have to share the above views to come along. Just wanting to have some fun thing to do on a Sunday afternoon is all that is needed. Hope to see many faces (new and old).

Dorka @ 101