The Making of the Richmond Town Banners
The idea for the town banners originated from Lisa Curtis, owner of Sweet Simones and member of Western Slopes Business Association.
Lisa wanted to beautify downtown Richmond with colorful pole banners and asked Radiate Art Space if we could to help accomplish her vision. WSBA kindly offered to pay for the materials and handle the logistics of hanging the banners, and Radiate volunteers got to work brainstorming what kind of images and messaging would best represent our town.
First, Radiate Art Space asked the Richmond community to submit ideas for the banners.
One Richmond Elementary student submitted a drawing that simply said ‘This is Richmond’ with drawing of a heart. The simple message really spoke to us, and we agreed unanimously that should be our banner slogan.
We listed some activities our community can be found doing and some familiar landmarks. Then we planned out our 15 sketches so each included an activity and a recognizable spot in Richmond.
Once we had our list of 15 banner ideas, we got to work sketching. After a pencil sketch was finished, it was brought onto a computer and traced in color so that we could plan our palette to be cohesive across all 15 banners. The color computer files were then printed out to size (18” x 36”) and traced on a canvas. Once we had the canvases ready, we worked together to paint in the drawing with our shared paint palette.
Julie Toth, Volunteer & Secretary of the Board
Judy Bush, Volunteer Teacher & Board Member
Rebecca Rouiller, Director of Radiate Art Space
When the paintings were complete, each painting was scanned and sent to be printed on weather-proof, durable material so they can hang all year.
