ANCA | New mural celebrates belonging

by Sydney Emerson

SARANAC LAKE — A couple of hours before Tri-Lakes Pride began on Sunday, a different kind of rainbow appeared on Main Street: ADK ArtRise’s new technicolor community mural, “Welcoming and Belonging.”

The mural is comprised of 32 panels painted by different artists and community groups around Saranac Lake. Though each panel depicts a different scene, object or idea, they all come together to form a rainbow gradient. The project, coordinated by ArtRise co-owner and teacher Britt Sternberg, has been in the works since last fall. Sternberg said the mural’s inception is a “long story.”

“Originally, this was a project that was started by the Adirondack Diversity Initiative and Paul Smith’s College,” Sternberg said. “They wanted to work on creating safe spaces. They had done a study on campus and they wanted to find a way to tie Paul Smith’s students and have them interact with community members. ArtRise was just going to be the place to house that happening.”

ArtRise applied for and received two grants for the project — funding from the Statewide Community Regrants Program, administered by the Adirondack Lakes Center for the Arts, and the National Endowment for the Arts. Additional funding came from the Our Town Blu/Pen Artist in Residency collaboration between BluSeed Studios and Pendragon Theater.

Read the full article in the Adirondack Daily Enterprise.

Photo by Carla Sternberg