SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Something flashy, colorful and unique is coming to downtown Sacramento in the next few months. The WX portion of Highway 50 will soon be home to a mural museum.
It's all through a Sacramento-based nonprofit named ARTners and is the brainchild of Markos Egure who started the organization at his company “Wes Kos Images."
“The word ‘ARTners’ and the meaning itself is those who have made the commitment to live on the creative path,” said Egure.
Fast-forward to 2019 when Egure and ARTners president Teresa Gutierrez approached the city of Sacramento about doing a project underneath the freeway in partnership with Caltrans and the state of California.
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“We approached this project, we thought of many things. One of the things was we wanted the art to represent some of the people that don't get represented, we wanted to make this a project for Sacramento, of Sacramento,” said Egure.
The project in the works is under the portion of Highway 50 and will be from 24th Street to 6th Street and will see artwork on about 28 pillars.
“We want to honor inspirational people in Sacramento as well,” said Gutierrez. “We can do anybody on the pillars and any subjects on the pillars that meet the criteria, but to have the artists, the local artists here doing it, it's so super important.”
Egure says the current project did not receive any public art funds.
“So we have to fundraise ourselves,” he said. “We have to write grant after grant after grant to possibly get some (funds).”
According to Egure, Caltrans owns the project and is currently funding other projects... but not this one.
“The challenge is that we have to earn our own funding,” he said.
Through Clean California, Caltrans has put money aside to fund projects, like the one being done by ARTners, where the goal is to beautify state freeways and highways.
Egure says the nonprofit currently has enough to do one block but needs the communities' help. To learn more about the project, click here.
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