Client: Mare Island Company

Overview

An art experience that beckons a day trip. Whimsical large sculptures, site-specific murals, and community art projects combine for an inspiring experience in a location rich with history and worthy of discovery. 2024 marks Local Edition Creative’s 4th year of curating and producing a comprehensive art program for our client, Mare Island Company. Conceived of by our team, the project is tailored to encourage discovery of the peninsula located just 15 minutes south of California’s famous wine country and 30 minutes north of San Francisco. Mare Island is the West Coast’s oldest naval base in the US, founded in 1854 and decommissioned in 1996.

With a truly unique and expansive space to work with, we knew Mare Island would be the perfect place to incorporate multiple Burning Man type sculptures surrounded by steel cranes, empty coal sheds, and historical buildings. Site-specific murals would add points of interest along the main roadways. Involving community and local talent is essential to our ethos, so we developed opportunities for their involvement with community mural painting sessions, creating art for movable structures used annually for events, and roadside billboards designed with artwork inspired by the island that greet visitors as they come and go.

Goals

Local Edition Creative prides itself in creating income streams for artists and providing public art experiences that are free for the public to enjoy. The Mare Island Artyard project was established to integrate an essential public art component into our client's plans through the early and long-term stages of their site development.

In the current early stage, our focus has been to integrate temporary art installations that provide high impact and compliment the setting. In the case of murals and community artworks, each are designed specifically to highlight elements of the past, present, and future of the historic island.

Our approach has allowed us the ability to provide paid opportunities for dozens of artists to date including leasing sculptures for a special temporary exhibition that rotates annually, and commissioned work for muralists and numerous local talent. These art installations are of significant importance to signal there is something new and inviting happening in the area, establish a sense of pride through the art, and that an investment is being made into the overall health and well-being of the community.

Process

As a turn-key creative placemaking agency, Local Edition Creative manages the entire art process from project development, curation, contracts, production, and marketing. We work closely with our client on the planning and marketing. Collaboration includes multiple stakeholders, artists, and community members.

Additional Information

The most rewarding thing about this project is the impact it has made on the community as well as for those discovering Mare Island. Together with Mare Island Company we have built an inspiring and meaningful program that has resonated deeply with many people. There is something special about the location and the art integrations have truly elevated the setting into a place people want to visit time and again. We had a "build it and they will come" mindset when developing this project and each year gets better and better. A place where you can see amazing Burning Man type sculptures up close and personal, where the murals give a glimpse into the history and locale, and the community artworks evoke the essence of a beautiful place to live, work, and visit.