Homeless children’s shelter selects five Valley artists to decorate its walls
Sep 8, 2016, 10:29 AM | Updated: 10:29 am
(Kathy Cline/KTAR)
(Kathy Cline/KTAR)
PHOENIX — After thousands of votes, a Valley homeless children center has chosen five artists to transform its blank exterior walls.
Tumbleweed Center for Youth Development announced it had chosen its five artists on Thursday to complete its Wonderwall project. The message is “Hope, Strength and a Brighter Tomorrow.”
“We’re trying to take a building and make it say to the community and to our young people — ‘This is where your life is going to start getting better,'” Tumbleweed spokesman Ken Lynch said in June.
Seventy-five artists submitted a design into the contest. After they were narrowed to 10 finalists, the public was asked to choose their favorite.
More than 4,400 votes were cast.
“We were overwhelmed with the response we received,” Tumbleweed CEO Cynthia Schuler said in a press release. “We’re incredibly grateful to those who took the time and effort to submit their images, in addition to those who voted for their favorites.”
The artists who were chosen are Mark Hicks, Josh Brizuela, Cynthia Huettner, Mindy Timm and Nicholas Holt.
There are five blank panels on the wall near 24th and Van Buren streets. Each artist will be responsible for one panel, and those panels will be seen by at least 115,000 vehicles a week.
The Wonderwall will be unveiled during a ribbon-cutting for the youth resource center, scheduled for Oct. 5.
KTAR’s Kathy Cline contributed to this event.
