By SUE SUCHYTA
Sunday Times Newspapers
ALLEN PARK – Color filled the downtown Aug. 23 as the city’s Downtown Development Authority presented “Paint the Park,” with an art fair, murals and kid crafts.
The event, which began last year as a way to bring art to the community, has turned into a weekend that celebrates creativity and the power of public spaces.
While Aug. 22 was interrupted by rain, Aug. 23 found attendees strolling amid booths, children enjoying crafts and a bouncy house, and artists painting on canvases while attendees watched and struck up conversations.
Artist Jonathan Sandberg, aka “Seymour,” said people had been stopping by and talking to them.
“It’s really exciting to see everything that’s been going on here, and having this festival here,” he said.
Sandberg was using square-shaped stencils and spray paint to create his work.
“I like to figure out as many different ways to use them as possible, layering things and using just the corners of the squares to make the egg shapes,” he said.
Sandberg said it’s also fun to spend times with other artist friends that he doesn’t have enough time to see otherwise.
Artist Kobie Solomon said he was having fun doing live painting with his contemporaries.
He is known for his Detroit Chimera mural on the west-facing wall of the Russell Industrial Center.
Solomon said he enjoys painting with his fellow artists, and while he does get into the zone with his earphones on, he doesn’t mind talking to attendees who stop by.
“What we all would rather be doing is painting with each other just for the pure enjoyment of the painting,” he said.
Artist Chase Golematis, aka “FEL 3000 FT,” said anytime he and his fellow artists get to congregate with people they respect and care for while doing something fun, they do it.
He has done murals in Detroit, including work in the Lions’ stadium tunnel, as well as a HopCat mural in Midtown featuring a woman’s profile merged with mechanical gears.
Golematis, who was working live with acrylic and spray paint, said he “had no rhyme or reason,” and would just “see what happens.”
“Everything that I draw when I do cartoon characters sort of leans sort of Japanese Anime style, because I have been drawing that stuff since I was a kid,” he said. “So, it’s a go to.”
Golematis said when kids come by and talk to him while he’s painting, he asks them how old they were when they first became interested in art.
“Some of them are like, ‘I’m not interested in it,” or some of them will be like, ‘I draw all the time,’ and so I get an opportunity to tell them that when I started, I was nine, and look where I am, doing what I’m doing, and it gives them some validation and maybe even a little bit of a spark for them to want to try to continue,” he said.
Artist Matt Thornton said he has had people who are familiar with his work as well as new to it stop by and talk to him.
He said it’s interesting to talk to children who stop to look at his work.
“They’re just simple shapes, but kids see their own things,” he said. “Somebody saw doughnuts, somebody saw their own little toys, so it’s interesting hearing how they react to it,” he said. “Kids have that naïve brain where everything is abstract.”
Thorton said children are attracted to the colors and energy of his paintings.
“They get a kick out of it, and I like when they come by,” he said.