In celebration of Madison's new Mural Alley, the community is invited to come together to celebrate the five murals now gracing the alleys behind the Madison East Shopping Center on the 2900 block of E. Washington Avenue (on the Hermina St side of the property) on August 13 from 6-8pm.

View the murals and meet the mural artists and collaborators, dine at one of the local food carts operating out of Christine’s Kitchen. Enjoy local music performed by Madison teens. Free & open to the public! A limited number of food cart vouchers will be available for neighborhood residents who need them, thanks to a donation from the Madison East Shopping Center.

While you are at the event, check out a demo of a Food Pocket Garden at the Mural Alley Opening too! Gardens Network is excited to unveil the raised bed garden, planted with seasonal vegetables. Mini workshops on horticultural techniques for raised bed gardening will be offered in September and October by Gardens Network staff at Hawthorne Library. Funding to get these gardens "off the ground" is available if a 6-8 resident core group establishes by the end of September. Pocket Food gardens are tiny community gardens. These gardens can fit into any neighborhood to provide healthy food and connections with nature. Residents from the Darbo, Worthington, or other close-by neighborhoods are wanted immediately! Come and see the demo at the Hawthorne Library and sign-up to be a Pocket Gardener.

As part of the Mural Alley celebration, members of the community who are interested in thinking about how Madison could have more community engaged art and placemaking are invited to attend an additional event before the general celebration.  A LET’S DO BETTER TOGETHER HAPPY HOUR film screening and panel discussion previews the celebration on August 13, 5-6:30 pm at the Hawthorne Library Community Room at 2707 E. Washington Ave. Spend happy hour watching 20 minutes of the Madison premier screening of Civic Art: Four Stories from South Los Angeles, followed by a panel discussion with artist Sara Daleiden, the film’s producer; Heather Stouder, City of Madison Planning Director; Gregory Mickells, Library Director; and Greg Rice and John Brigham, owners of the East Madison Shopping Center.
This program will give community members the opportunity to begin a dialogue about how Madison could facilitate more community-engaged art for a healthier and happier city. Space for this free event is limited; please email madisonarts@cityofmadison.com if you are interested in participating.

What is Mural Alley?
As part of the Darbo-Worthington Neighborhood Planning process, City of Madison Planners asked Madison East Shopping Center owners, Greg Rice and John Brigham, if they‘d be open to hosting a community art and placemaking exercise to welcome community input for options.  Their agreement, resulted in a design charrette with members of the neighborhood at Hawthorne Library in August of 2016. The charrette participants focused on the Hermina Street side of the shopping center and recommended multiple improvements that were included in the Darbo-Worthington plan, including youth-involved murals, enclosures for the trash dumpsters, seating for area behind the Hawthorne Library, more plantings, and an outdoor movie screening area.

The Madison Arts Commission (MAC) and the Bubbler at Madison Public Library collaborated with the property owners to implement some of the community-originated ideas. Five community youth groups were paired with five artists to co-create five vibrant murals there.

MURAL #1: Richie Morales & Dane county Juvenile Court Shelter Home (Canto a Madison - CULTURA CORAZON)
MURAL #2: Pete Hodapp & Capitol High School
MURAL #3: Lesley Anne Numbers & Goodman Community Center's Girls Inc.
MURAL #4: Amos Paul Kennedy & Teen's from Darbo-Worthington neighborhood
MURAL #5: Flavia Zimbardi / Caetano Calomino / Henrique Nardi & Dane County Juvenile Detention Center

The Madison Arts Commission funded the murals through their Art in Public Places program. The property owners made additional improvements to their site to accommodate the project and the community’s ideas. Please attend the mural alley celebration on August 13th and learn more about the murals in Mural Alley and the stories they tell about our history, our present, and our future.