Student-Created Art Brings Joy to Turnpike Travelers
Sometimes, all it takes is a spark.
One spark to inspire students all across the state. One spark for every Pennsylvania Turnpike service plaza to burst with color and life. And it’s all thanks to Art Sparks.
“It was a unique and fun idea and was a way to infuse our service plazas with a little bit of the culture of the towns around them,” said Turnpike Chief Strategy and Communications Officer Kelli Roberts, who helped launch Art Sparks back in 2017.
Arts Sparks, a joint effort between the Turnpike and the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, adorns the Turnpike’s service plazas with student-created artwork depicting local scenes. Last week -- eight years after the program launched -- the Blue Mountain Service Plaza became the 17th and final service plaza to host an unveiling, wowing the traveling public with a mural created by local students. Pictured below is the artwork at Blue Mountain Service Plaza, along with the art students from Shippensburg Area High School that participated.
You can check out a retrospective of the Art Sparks program in this video:
https://paturnpike.rev.vbrick.com/sharevideo/4649e2a5-5a00-4185-832f-59b16d21ba75
(Video by Assistant Press Secretary Crispin Havener).
By the nature of service plazas, travelers are in and out as they grab a quick bite to eat and take care of, well, nature. But eight years ago, Roberts and her team thought those pitstops could be more of an experience, allowing travelers to take in the history, life, and culture of all the fascinating Pennsylvania towns around the service plazas. After exploring several ideas, they found the Art in Education program and thought it would be a great way not only to reach out to those communities, but also to connect with local schools.
It was an idea the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts took to like paint on canvas.
“I love this project so much,” said Jamie Dunlap, the Council on the Arts’ Chief of Creative Catalysts and Lifelong Learning. “It gives kids and young adults a voice about what is important in their community and what they want others to know about their community.”
It’s not only a chance for travelers to learn about the students’ hometowns, but it’s also a chance for the student artists, themselves, to take a deep dive and discover all those cool things they may not have known were in their own backyards.
But for everyone involved, Art Sparks was also about something a little less tangible but something that connects us all. Art.
“I think art is a really amazing way and a personal way to bring a space to life,” Dunlap said.
For both creators and appreciators, it does so with color, beauty, and a story.
Beyond that, the program gives students a sneak peek of what life is like for a professional artist who works for a client. Turnpike Communications Specialist Chrissy Bennett, who took the lead of the program soon after it launched, said while students had a substantial amount of creative control, they still had some parameters to follow. But within the confines of creating something locally pertinent, students had a world of possibilities, limited only by their imaginations. And looking across the 17 service plazas, those young imaginations created a landscape as vast, colorful, and vivid as Pennsylvania itself in paintings, murals, silk flags, mosaics of glass and clay tiles, and even QR codes to videos – it’s all there.
“I’m thrilled that it all came together,” Bennett said. “This is something that distinguishes each service plaza, and it’s beautiful.”
For Bennett, the most fun part may have been the unveilings of each new project. Students, teachers, Turnpike and Council on the Arts officials, and members of the public and travelers always stopped by for the show. Each Art Sparks unveiling event grew and grew, incorporating other students at each school, like choirs and bands and even some schools’ journalism classes and photographers to cover the events. Each Art Sparks also had its own VIP day, too, where Turnpike CEO Mark Compton, Council on the Arts Executive Director Karl Blischke, and other officials would stop by the schools, talk to the students, and even grab a paint brush to lend their own artistic talent.
Thanks to the Art Sparks program, all of the Turnpike’s service plaza now have their own feel, personality, and local flair, and Concession Services Supervisor Michelle Tressler just loves that.
“It’s informative and educational, and it will be there generations from now,” said Tressler, who helps oversee the Turnpike’s service plazas. “The Turnpike itself has a lot of history, and our travelers get to see this living history.”
Blue Mountain may be the final service plaza to boast student artwork, but Art Sparks isn’t going anywhere. A student-created bike wash is coming soon to the new Sideling Hill Service Plaza’s Trail Head, which should be unveiled this summer.
New ways to draw attention to the projects already on display at the service plaza are in the works, as the student-created artwork lives on for many years along the PA Turnpike -- a 565-mile-long gallery, visited by half a million art appreciators per day.
By Steve Marroni, PA Turnpike Communications Specialist