The Chesterton
Branding Leadership Team’s Art & Beautification Committee (ABC) has been in
discussion for some months now with the Park Board about giving the new
restroom facility at Dogwood Park an artistic treatment. The first fruit of
that conversation: a “selfie wall” to be installed at the facility’s
entrance, facing 23rd Street.
At the Park Board’s
meeting Tuesday night, ABC Chair Wendy Marciniak unveiled a pair of original
6’ x 4’ works entitled Play to Grow and painted by Brian Dortmund of
ArtSmith Studios, 325-1 S. Calumet Road in Chesterton, which will be mounted
between the doors to the men’s and women’s restrooms.
Both are colorful,
whimsical garden scenes featuring anthropomorphized flowers, one for kids to
shoot selfies in front of, the other for adults and older children.
The two works will
both be painted onto panels--a substrate typically used beneath tiling--then
slid into a powder-coated steel frame which will be bolted to the restroom
wall, Marciniak said. The fixture will allow the paintings to be removed and
replaced with new ones in the future, she added.
Mark Hopkins, owner
of Hopkins ACE Hardware, will be donating all materials, Marciniak noted.
Members liked the
project and voted unanimously to proceed.