City of Sugar Hill Participates in the More Than Murals Workshop
The City of Sugar Hill participated in the first ever More Than Murals Workshop, a three-day intensive program on using art to address community challenges. The workshop was organized and sponsored by the Georgia Council for the Arts (GCA), the City of Thomasville, the Georgia Municipal Association (GMA) and the Thomasville Center for the Arts. The following twelve cities went through an application process to be chosen to participate: Canton, Cairo, Doraville, Griffin, Homerville, Milledgeville, Monroe, Sugar Hill, Tifton, Valdosta, Vidalia, and Watkinsville. Each of the city’s team had to include three local leaders representing an arts organization, or artist in their community, a city manager, or a member of the city council, and a downtown program manager or tourism professional.
The twelve cities got the opportunity to see what Thomasville has accomplished through strategic partnerships with artists, arts organizations, local businesses, and the city. After meeting with those responsible for Thomasville’s growth and seeing their arts-related projects, attendees participated in a crash course in creative placemaking and public art to learn how to plan and carry out effective arts-based programming. Each community team came away from the workshop with a specific arts-based strategy that addresses the challenges that each of their cities are facing.
“Creative arts and placemaking within your community are more than what you just see in a mural, it is the creative placemaking of arts that brings in culture and vibrancy. It could be for Thomasville the bronze sculptures on the hunt the lost quail or the temporary art that we work with the Center for the Arts on bringing those types of things into the community really activate quality of life,” April North, the Managing Director of the Marketing Communication for the City of Thomasville said.
For more information on the More Than Murals Workshop or the Georgia Council for the Arts, please contact Tina Lilly Director of Georgia Council for the Art at 404-962-4827 or tlilly@gaarts.org.
