CalTrans Clean California Initiative: Gateway and Mural Project
The County of Mariposa is working with Caltrans as part of their Clean CA initiative for a new public art project. Located in the town of Mariposa, this project entails two gateway features located at the southern and northern intersections of Highway 140 and Highway 49 and two murals.
The project team – planners, designers and artists contracted by the County – are exploring themes that reflect Mariposans’ relationship with the natural landscapes that are important the identity and sense of place of our community. The proposed gateway features and murals will explore Mariposa’s native ecological systems and the connection between people and place.
The Arts Council facilitated opportunities for public input on the project’s early design concepts between Jan 17 – Feb. 18, 2023, and received over 200 responses from community members and stakeholders. Data collected during this process has been packaged and shared with the project artists and design team.
Questions about this project and process?
- Read the Stakeholder Engagement summary
- Read the Mariposa County Project Fact Sheet
Project Details
Installation Site Map
Projects are slated for installation in the town area of Mariposa County. View the identified site locations in the slide show below.
Stakeholder Engagement Process
Between Jan. 18 – Feb. 17, 2023, the Arts Council provided a series of stakeholder engagement opportunities through which the public was invited to explore early design concepts, discuss ideas with project team members and offer feedback. In addition to an open online survey and standing exhibitions at the Mariposa Arts Council and the Mariposa County Library, the stakeholder series included the following in-person events:
- Miwumati Healing Center – January 25 (specific for tribal stakeholder engagement)
- Mariposa County Library – Community Conversation on February 9
- Sticks Coffee – Saturday, February 4, 9:00-11:30 AM
- Pioneer Market – Saturday, February 4, 1-4 PM
- The Grove House – Thursday, February 2, 5-7 PM
- The Alley – Tuesday, February 7, 5-7 PM
This process can be explored in the summarized report below:
Connection to Creative Placemaking
This project implements the recommendations of the Mariposa County Creative Placemaking Strategy. That plan, adopted by the Board of Supervisors in August 2021, relied on extensive stakeholder engagement to develop a vision for creative placemaking investments like this one.
The planning effort revealed that Mariposans want to see more art that explores the county’s native ecological systems and the connections between people and place. To that end, each of the preliminary concepts shown reflect some of the ways that Mariposans have engaged, connected with, and relied on plants, animals, and landscapes that are so important to the identity and sense of place of our community.
Significantly, the Creative Placemaking Strategy recommends a program of coordinated murals and gateway elements, located throughout the county and engaging with similar themes. In other words, the mural and gateway feature projects shown in this survey represent just the first of many similar projects that the County anticipates pursuing in the future. As you are reviewing the preliminary concepts, we recommend approaching these as the beginning of a larger project.
Partners and Project Roles
CalTran’s Clean California Initiative provides funds to clean and beautify public spaces in underserved communities by providing financial support to local and regional public agencies, transit agencies, tribal governments and nonprofit organizations.
The Mariposa County Planning Department is the funding recipient and the lead for this project.
Mariposa County has engaged Atlas Lab Inc., a landscape architecture, urban design and public art practice firm who have previously worked with both the County and the Arts Council to develop the County’s Creative Placemaking Strategy. Atlas Lab will be designing the gateway features and managing the project’s team and timeline.
Ink Dwell Studio, a renowned studio located in Half Moon Bay known for its murals that explore the beauty and complexity of nature, has been hired to develop and install the murals.
Engineering firm Provost and Pritchard will oversee the project’s technical aspects, including issues associated with highway safety and permitting.
The Mariposa Arts Council (that’s us!) is facilitating stakeholder engagement and relaying community feedback to project partners.
The Concepts
Note: the preliminary design concepts for review are NOT the final designs and these renderings contain only placeholder imagery. The design team humbly offered these draft concepts to the public as a starting place for robust feedback. However, while these concepts are very much preliminary drafts, much research and intention has gone into the ideas behind them and they represent significant ecological systems and cultural elements present here in Mariposa.
As recommended by the Mariposa County Creative Placemaking Strategy, each of the preliminary concepts shown in this online survey examines unique facets of the county’s native ecological systems and the connections between people and place.
The stunning feather pattern of the Northern Flicker serves as the inspiration for Concept 1. The Northern Flicker is a woodpecker and one of the only animals in the region who create homes for other non-drilling species of birds and mammals. They have an important ecological role in helping to control populations of insects and pests for better tree health. The Southern Sierra Miwuk connects to, recognizes and celebrates the critical role of the Northern Flicker by incorporating Flicker feathers into traditional ceremonial headbands. A representation of both being caretakers of the landscape.
Gateway Features
The site of the northern gateway allows for both vehicular and pedestrian engagement. In order to maximize the advantages of both transportation modalites, this site will explore the intricate feather pattern of the Northern Flicker in an installation that changes and resolves as the view moves past as a pedestrian or in a vehicle, recalling the flash of the bird’s wings. The southern gateway site only allows for vehicular engagement and requires a more simple design, easily and safely viewed and understood by individuals quickly passing in cars. Both gateway features welcome people to Mariposa in the Miwuk language. Micheksesee is a Miwuk greeting, this language will be amended and solidified with the Miwuk language keepers support.
Mural Designs
Mural Site 1 will be designed to be in direct dialogue with the southern gateway feature offering those driving by an opportunity to easily see the detailed pattern and action of the Northern Flickers feathers in another medium and context. The mural will be accentuated with, indigenous plants and animals who call the native ecosystem home. On the western portion of the wall the Miwuk word for home, “uuchum” speaks to the importance of place and belonging for all living things. The final design will use Miwuk symbols and designs for the letter pattern. Mural Site 2 continues to explore the patterns and significance of the Northern Flicker and welcomes the Black Bear as it emerges from its winter hibernation. Simple silhouettes will support the Bear and Flicker features to create a lush spring habitat scene. The triangular area over the bear will use Miwuk symbols and designed used in Mural Site 1.
Concept 2A: Clapper Sticks
The connection of traditional lifeways and local ecologies, and the ties between them provide the inspiration for both Concepts 2A and 2B gateway features and murals.
Gateway Features
The joy of gathering with community, music-making, and ceremony is evoked by a collection of oversized Miwuk clapsticks. The percussive instruments mark a celebratory entrance into the town of Mariposa, and the use of naturally sourced materials honors Miwuk cultural arts. Signage on the gateway retaining walls recognizes that people are entering the ancestral and current home of the Southern Sierra Miwuk Nation, the indigenous stewards of this land.
Concept 2B: Acorn Granaries
The connection of traditional lifeways and local ecologies, and the ties between them provide the inspiration for both Concepts 2A and 2B gateway features and murals.
Gateway Features
A field of wood columns, each revealing a slot filled with brightly colored acorns, references the practice of storing acorns as a food source in cylindrical wooden granaries. This traditional practice of the Southern Sierra Miwuk Nation is echoed by native acorn caching birds.
Concept 2 Murals: Clapper Sticks + Acorn Granaries
These murals respond to themes addressed in Concept 2A and 2B.
The ecological and cultural significance of the acorn is examined in Mural Site 1 with illustrations of several varieties of indigenous oak acorns accompanied by native animals reliant on oaks for a food source or shelter. Depicted are Blue Oak and a Northern Flicker, Coast Live Oak with a California Sister Butterfly and Valley Oak with a Western Fence Lizard (species may change). Nodding to the importance of the acorn as a first food for the Southern Miwuk, traditional Miwuk basket patterns frame the acorns and animals, speaking to the critical connection between people and place. Again the Miwuk word for home, “uuchum,” is situated on the western portion of the wall signifying the importance of belonging, comfort and security for all living things. Mural Site 2 features illustrations with the basketry patterns depicting acorns as well as important plants. Each plant each has an insect interaction. Depicted placeholders from left to right: Blue Oak Acorn; Yarrow with hover fly; Coast Live Oak Acorn; Sticky Monkey with bee; Bee Plant with bee; heckerbloom with Painted Lady Butterfly; Pearly Everlasting with American Lady Butterfly; The triangular area over the bear will use Miwuk symbols and designs used in Mural Site 1.
