Commission for City of Medford, in collaboration with Esteban Camacho Steffensen. Mural and Ceramic Installation located in Hawthorne Park Viaduct pillars under Interstate-5.
My team was commissioned to help revitalize this park's reputation from an unsafe and underused space into a vibrant welcoming public greenspace in downtown Medford. Today Hawthorne Park hosts music events, farmer's markets, dog parks and playgrounds.
Each of the six chosen pillars holding up I-5 were painted with the Rogue Valley's landscapes and natural history in mind. With twelve compositions total, each design features a native species in their habitat for a month of the year.
With the support of the Wildlife Images Center, we collected the stories and research of many characters including the Western pond turtle, blue heron, trout, salmon, rattlesnake, swallowtail butterfly, pollinators, insects, black bear and cougar.
As a native myself to Southern Oregon, this Wildlife Calendar Walk mural has been an experience of restoring reputation and relationship with the park as a vibrant space. It has also been a parallel experience of portraying species that we humans fear or don't connect with. Our hope is that these images can help create a new relationship of respect and curiosity with the black bear, cougar, rattlesnake and others with a historical reputation, while continuing to honor and revitalize populations such as the salmon and honeybee.
See more progress images of this project at instagram.com/jessilynbrinkerhoff.