The skies in Georgia have been gray this year, but plans are underway to reduce some of the gray in Downtown Tucker. The City of Tucker is looking for qualified artist to submit proposals for the City’s first mural since the community incorporated in 2016.
The mural will be located on roughly 200 square feet of retaining wall that runs along the northwest side of the alley behind Infinite Realities and adjacent to the Tucker Professional Building.
This will be the first piece of public art officially commissioned by the City of Tucker in the right-of-way. The desire for public art in Tucker is expressed within half a dozen plans and studies initiated by the City and the Tucker-Northlake Community Improvement District (CID). Those who took part in the jointly funded Downtown Tucker Master Plan public input survey, rated public art and activated alleys as high priorities in placemaking.
The current call for public art by the City is a result of the Atlanta Regional Commission’s Community Development Assistance Program (CDAP). The CDAP Art in the Alleys project was presented to the City and the CID in May of 2022. The project reviewed existing conditions and opportunities in Tucker, as well as communities of similar size with existing public art programs and commissions. This helped answer important questions among city leaders and the business community.
“Commercial property owners in Downtown Tucker have been interested in public art for years,” says Matthew Lee, Executive Director of the Tucker-Northlake CID. “The question was, where to do it and how to do it right? We knew the alleys would be a great spot for public art, and once the City committed to developing the alleys we had the first answer.”
The question of how to do it right came through the work of the Art in the Alleys project team and the thirteen-member steering committee. The five-point criteria for the current mural are based on community recommendations in the document.
“There is something about the sense of anticipation, of wondering what’s around the corner, that motivates people to get out of their cars and discover hidden beauty,” says Lee. “This mural will be another step in that journey.”
Through regional and local partnerships, since its incorporation in 2016, the City of Tucker has continued to make measured progress in bringing the community vision into reality. For more on the community vision for public art in Downtown Tucker, visit tuckeralleys.org.