Group of volunteers create mural together at PT Cole Park in Tyler
Published 5:40 am Sunday, March 19, 2023
- PT_Cole_Community_Mural_(15).jpg
The restrooms at PT Cole Park in Tyler got a makeover Saturday thanks to a group of creative volunteers.
Tylerites and members of Keep Tyler Beautiful spent their morning at the park to paint a mural together with a goal to beautify an area that doesn’t normally catch the eye of a park visitor.
“One of our goals is to paint a restroom mural at each of our parks that have restrooms, mainly because we want to turn those utilitarian objects that people don’t really pay attention to into beautiful works of art,” said Erin Garner, Keep Tyler Beautiful community coordinator. “It also helps us partner with local artists to create that artwork and each park gets its own personality.”
The organization’s mission is to “help encourage beautification, waste reduction, and recycling activities in the community.” PT Cole Park is just one of the many parks the group has created murals in, but this is the first restroom mural to be created by multiple community members rather than a single artist.
“This park (PT Cole) in particular ended up being our 10th restroom mural since 2019,” said Garner. “We’ve actually done five up until the end of 2022, and since November 2022 we did five more. We’ve come up with the idea of making this a community painting because this park is so beloved by this community. The idea of togetherness, and unity really kind of spoke to us, and we thought it would be a great location for the project like this.”
The plans to paint the mural were laid out for everyone to look at when they signed in before starting. Each volunteer was allowed to pick a color that was assigned with a marked space on the bathroom wall, which would complete the overall design.
“We kind of have our roster of usual suspects who come back to pretty much all of our events, whether it’s Hillside Park Art Wall which gets redone every two years,” said Garner. “That’s going on right now, so artists can submit for that project until April 7. We have several artists who have worked on several different murals for us.”
The mural is also part of renovations currently going on in the park.
“I am part of the team that helps with all of our renovations, so I’ve been involved with the renovation here at PT Cole. It’s really a team effort, and we’re excited about all of this because it’s going to better reflect what our community wants and deserves,” said Kristi Nipp, Parks and Recreation services coordinator for the City of Tyler.
“Historically this park is very frequently used. It has not been funded as well as it should have been, so it’s really great that we get some grant funding that we’re able to infuse into this park right now. I’m excited for this mural to be a reflection of our community, and the fact that it’s a community painted mural is even more exciting because it really gets everyone involved in the process.”
Everyone of all ages were able to participate in volunteering to paint.
“I really love painting, I’m a henna artist myself as well, and I thought this was a really great idea,” said Huma Shaid, member of the Keep Tyler Beautiful Youth Committee. “I’m so excited to see the finished product. I saw what the plans looked like, and it looks amazing.”
Keep Tyler Beautiful’s next events include the Great Tyler Clean Up on April 1, as well as an Earth Day festival that will be on April 22.
“Anybody can participate in any of those events,” said Erin Garner. “We just ask if you’re bringing your kid with you that you watch them and take good care of them. If somebody wants to come out and help, we want anybody to help make a difference, especially the youth. Really instilling that in them is a really big part of what we do.”