TULSA, Okla. — On Friday, the City of Tulsa and River Parks Authority opened the new public art installation at the Zink Lake Overlook, celebrating the Tulsa community and the power of public art.
For many years, there were safety and aesthetic concerns surrounding the overlook due to its age and the difficulty the River Parks Authority had in maintaining it as a safe place for the public. At first, the plan was to demolish it.
Instead, Chief of Staff at the City of Tulsa Blake Ewing said, “The idea of using art not as a decoration, but as a solution, rose up out of that conversation…Now this thing, that would have been demolished and turned into a sodded, grassy hillside is a part of Tulsa’s story.”
Jamie Pierson from Scraps Designs curated and managed a team of 11 local artists who created a selection of various murals that were all designed to be continuous and cohesive, matching in color palette and aesthetic.
“I was super excited about this because I’ve done several murals, but I’ve never done one in my hometown of Tulsa,” said Jillian Bell, one of the artists involved with the Zink Lake Murals Project. “I drew inspiration from the landscape and the birds that live on the water here, so I incorporated the blue heron and the water that we see here on Zink lake in my design.”