Artists help celebrate CdA Park’s 125 years

Coeur d’Alene Park in Browne’s Addition is turning 125 years old this year, and the celebrations are getting started this spring.

First up: Art for the Park. On May 21, four teams, each headed by a professional artist, will paint large-scale street art in the four intersections surrounding the park: Second Avenue and Spruce Street, Second and Chestnut Street, Fourth Avenue and Chestnut, and Third Avenue and Spruce.

The artists creating the designs and leading each team are Ellen Picken, Tom Quinn, Tiffany Paterson and Erin Mielcarek. The teams will include area high school and community college students, as well as a number of community volunteers, according to a news release.

Mielcarek works in paint and clay and has shown her art around Spokane, including at Terrain, Kolva-Sullivan Gallery and Window Dressing. She has art degrees from SFCC and Eastern Washington University.

Patterson is a local artist, illustrator and graphic designer whose work can be found on everything from billboards to library cards. She also organizes a monthly drop-in Social Sketch.

Picken graduated from EWU in 2003 with a bachelor in fine arts; 13 years later she earned a second bachelor’s, this one in visual communications and design. Picken works for the Spokane Arts Fund as program manager. She and Mielcarek in 2014 collaborated on mural on the Wall Street underpass downtown.

Quinn has painted murals at the airport and in several Spokane neighborhoods. The longtime Spokane artist teaches at the Spokane Art School and Corbin Art Center. He has art degrees from Gonzaga University and the Art Institute of Seattle.

The public is invited to check out the work in progress. There will be activities in the park that day, too, including art activities for children. The art teams will be at work from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.; the celebration is sponsored by the Friends of Coeur d’Alene Park.

Two weekends later, during the annual ArtFest (June 3-5), people will be invited to vote for their favorite intersection. Volunteers will be at each intersection collecting monetary donations. The intersection with the most donations will win a “People’s Choice” award, and the money collected will be used to make improvements in the park.

There will be a number of events in the park this summer, including the 20th year of the Coeur d’Alene Park Summer Concert Series sponsored by the Browne’s Addition Neighborhood Council. The anniversary year will culminate with Parkfest on Sept. 10.

Coeur d’Alene Park was the first public park built in Spokane, created in 1891.