Vibrant red swirles pour from a saxophone that mingles with poetry, and as it rolls away, a bus takes riders to the next stop.
Art created by four Bowling Green students now adorn those big TARTA buses chugging through Toledo.
The Arts Commission of Greater Toledo and the Toledo Area Regional Transportation Authority collaborated to combine art and poetry to feature on buses.
“We wanted to show the pride of the community,” said Jason Binder, Transit Planner for TARTA.
Mary Dawson, a Toledo based designer, helped bring this unique opportunity to the University last year with inspiration from University President Ribeau’s initiative to encourage students to enrich the community with arts.
“He was inviting any one to reach out to the community with their talents and their gifts,” Dawson said. “This was the perfect answer to that question.”
Ben Morales participated in the project last year when the theme was bridges, and his work will be featured again on two buses that spotlight a jazz theme.
“I didn’t really know how to approach the project last year,” he said. “This year I approached it with a little more confidence. Most importantly, I was trying to communicate the poem in a way that wasn’t too literal.”
The bus wraps usually last up to three years and cost around $8,000, according to Binder at TARTA. The art was funded by a grant from the Federal Government for the Transit Enrichment Plan.
The bus designs with their large, vibrant images and short poems are an aberration from the usual graphic arts project.
“These are 120 inches, when the biggest we usually do is 11 by 7,” said Brandy Obe, another University artist. Her final bus design has a black and white “urban vibe” with a bright yellow saxophone demanding the center of attention.
“My favorite design was one they didn’t pick,” Obe said. “But this is how the business works. You put your heart and soul in it and they tear it down.”
Instructor Alexdrina Chong said the department chose the “gem of the gems” to work on this project, and they all worked long hours since the beginning of the semester to complete the designs.
“Over the summer I asked them to research jazz and its language,” she said. “We read. We play jazz during the process. We read with emotion. We laughed about it. They even went to Toledo to visit jazz clubs.”
Morales and Obe worked with Chris Burke and Matthew Finkhausen on the designs as an independent study class.
“It was fun, but stressful. There are a lot of tight deadlines,” Morales said. “I had to put my other classes on hold.”
But he said the experience was invaluable because, “you can’t find a school project like this anywhere.”
Bowling Green will enjoy the fruit of the students’ work up close this weekend. Two of the buses will make a detour from their usual route for a stop at the School of Art’s Extravaganza Saturday from 6 to 9 p.m.
