Bunnell Street Art Center’s aim to strengthen the community through artistic engagement interfaces with other local efforts strengthening our environmental resources for economic, cultural and physical health.   Highlighting Woodard Creek as a community asset is a shared cause.  Woodard Creek connects our community from our watershed above South Peninsula Hospital and Karen Hornaday Park, from public spaces and private residences along Main Street to cultural hubs including the Pratt Museum and Homer Council on the Arts. Woodard Creek outlets at Bishop’s Beach not far from Bunnell, exactly where the Cenotaph was built by Bunnell’s Artist in Residence in May, 2014. Alaskan dancer / storyteller, Emily Johnson made Woodard Creek central to her place-based project, SHORE, presented by Bunnell in June. Another opportunity to highlight the creek and raise community awareness about it is value is through street painting on August 16, 2015.

Bunnell received approval from DOT to coordinate a painted visual depiction of the creek on the pavement  of Pioneer where it covers the creek, and we aim to do the same on the Bypass and streets north of Pioneer (Noview, Soundview, Rangeview, etc) with City approval. Bunnell is working with Woodard Creek Coalition, a community coalition aiming to restore the creek as a community asset.  WCC will take the opportunity to do some outreach in the community about why we are painting and why we want to daylight the creek. Working collaboratively with the City of Homer and WCC, we envision a wide, brightly painted “river” that visually pops out on the pavement. We’ll work with the City of Homer in stages so that the streets can remain open, traffic flowing. We’ll host a kids paint-in of the creek where its buried under the parking lots of the Pratt and HCOA. We envision signage like “Woodard Creek Flows Here” a week or two in advance. We need to find the workers, painters and traffic control for this event. Please contact Bunnell if you’d like to be involved.

In the very place where water pressure inside the culvert “containing” Woodard Creek at Pioneer Avenue forced a manhole cover 9 feet into the air a couple years ago, the creek could be the centerpiece of a beautiful gateway to Pioneer Avenue. Our goal is not to create a lasting painting of the creek on the pavement. We want to daylight the creek, to inspire design and planning that highlight the creek, such as a bridge culvert at Pioneer, with park and green space around it. Imagine that!  This could be an amazing re-vision of Pioneer Avenue.

As private property owners, non-profits, volunteers and friends of this beautiful, powerful buried gem, we invite the community to embrace Woodard Creek with us.