While there is no quick-fix for community redevelopment, community beautification through art is relatively simple. The only ingredients are cheap materials such as paint and the spark of a creative mind. Let us take into account the current state of affairs in downtown College Park aesthetics.
The horizon is bland, squat, and nearly uniform. From the vantage point sitting on the bench in front of Noodles and Boston Market facing north, a strip mall of just three stores stews in an awkward parking lot devoid of logical design. From the left they are College Park Bicycles, Kimi & Phil’s China Café (which is so unsavory that I ate there once and never returned) and 7-Eleven. Abutting this federation of mediocrity is, of course, Santa Fe Café. There is a reinforced vinyl banner strung up on one of the unused terraces, half of which is a Bud Light logo, the other the phrase “WELCOME BACK STUDENTS.” Further to the east is a retail bank, Bentley’s, and a spate of grub joints.
In the center of this panorama is the one aesthetic anomaly in downtown College Park. It is a towering trompe l’oeil painted façade of a building, attached unceremoniously to the side of an actual building. The mural is odd – it would seem to be the upper portion of a neo-Georgian brick home. Complete with three flat chimneys and five green attic windows, the center of this faux home is crowned by a hexagonal spire that juts above the building and is propped up from behind. The base of the spire is rimmed with miniature balustrades and what are perhaps baroque portals. It is supposed to be a belfry but it has no bell. Not even a painted one. It is the tallest point in downtown College Park and would be tallest point in the entire town were it not for the Memorial Chapel looming in the distance. The painted façade represents College Park in many ways – its disjointed attempt to look authentic and functional when in fact it is a messy pastiche of frippery. The painted bell tower without a bell could not be a more appropriately hollow symbol.
The implementation of better public art would mean a lot more to our community than painting a bell inside that fake tower. Good public art provides a common point of reference. It can unite a localized region while endowing it with something attractive, something compelling. There is hope for College Park art yet. My personal favorite mural in CP is tucked away on a wall inside alumni-owned California Tortilla. Painted by UMD students Graham Garvie and Matt Mayer, the work cleverly promotes CalTort while playing up Maryland’s reputation. It conveys the diversity of our campus through the common point of reference of our mascot.
Reviewing the public art of College Park it would seem there is no shortage of places for new work like the CalTort mural: in or around new projects along Route 1, the underpass along Paint Branch under the railroad tracks, or even incorporated into the new parking garage or city hall now being planned.
Photo credit Flickr user Loke Sonne