Sacramento Artists Help Draw Attention To and Away From K Street Need

A vacant lot at Eighth and K Streets in Sacramento is now mostly obscured by a block-and-a-half of murals.  The artwork shows the best the city has to offer with paintings of backyard gardens and people enjoying themselves. 

"We wanted them to think about what they wanted the city to aspire to be when thinking about what their concept was," says Megan Garcia with the Downtown Sacramento Partnership.  "So, you kind of get to see a little bit from each artist and what the city means to them and where they hope that it goes."

One of the murals is the creation of five-year-old Alex Grant and his father Adam, who works a few blocks away. 

"The sales director from Hyatt let us know that there was a contest going on.  So, it was kind of by chance that we found out about it. It was pretty much the next day that Alex came in and gave me this little drawing that he was like, 'Hey, this is me and my garden.'  So, I said 'Hey this is a great idea to do a mural here."

The mural project was initiated to help spur the arts and interest in the area.

"It's intended to be a temporary mural with the happy idea that that lot will at one point become something other than a vacant lot," says the Downtown Partnership's Garcia.

Leslie Jeske works for the building across K Street from the vacant lot.  She is thrilled to see something there after the fencing around the lot had fallen into disrepair.

"It was falling apart. Pieces blew off and the last wind storm almost took a woman's head off -flying through the air," Jeske says.  "And then they came and took it down and it was all bare plywood and now it's beautiful."

The Downtown Sacramento Partnership's foundation raised ten-thousand dollars to pay the artists and to pay for primer, sealer, and signage.  The murals are expected to stay in place for about a year.