Springfield, IL (CAPITOL CITY NOW) – Springfield is a beautiful city, but Downtown Springfield, Inc. has come out with a new “ARTification” program to continue to make Springfield even more bright and colorful! Jay Shanle, Executive Director for Downtown Springfield Inc. was a guest on the WTAX Morning Newswatch to discuss this new program.

“We announced our ARTification initiative, ARTification to us, is really kind of a blanket term. Under this announcement ARTification, we’ve got three programs that we’re starting back up. The first one is our art pop up series. 
We just did this Saturday after the farmer’s market. We pivoted and started our pop-up series. We had artist Terry Moore there to do our first show, and we had an amazing reception. People were excited to see, you know, like a First Friday or Third Thursday. 
If you remember those downtown, to see something like that come back, really want to support our local independent artists.” 

From a popup art series to a whole new mural.

“We have two murals downtown from 2015 and 17, and we’re going to launch this mural program, right. 
You have to maintain to keep this a valuable program. You have to maintain what you already have out there. So, Troy Freeman’s coming back in town, that Franklin Lloyd Wright mural on the back of Fifth and Monroe, plus our farmer’s market mural, are getting a refresh. 
And then we’re going to open that back up to other local artists, give them that opportunity to build and develop their experience and continue on with our mural program.”