Art studio links up with police to spruce up department’s facility
By Kyle Carrozza, Staff Writer, The Times
COATESVILLE – Art Partners Studio painted the Coatesville Police Department’s crest on the inside wall of the station’s garage this week.
Freelance artist and Art Partners Instructor Lynné Filion teamed up with Emily Hadfield and Crystal Brau of the Coatesville Youth Initiative to complete the effort.
Police Chief Jack Laufer said that the crest would help improve the appearance of the garage, a section of the station that becomes the first impression for many people, including other police departments.
Emily Hadfield, Crystal Brau, and Lynné Filion begin work on the crest. They initially projected it onto the wall, tracing the lines.
“We felt that it’s used quite a bit as our front door. It’s the first thing some people see,” he said.
Laufer said that the initial idea was to paint the concrete walls battleship gray. Cops and boy scouts primed the first wall about a month ago. After that was completed, the idea of painting the department’s crest was brought up. Sgt. Rodger Ollis reached out to Art Partners Studio who provided an instructor and two students to complete the task.
Art Partners Program Director Teresa Salinas said that she thinks that art pieces like the one in the police department’s garage can be a small factor in influencing the larger culture of the city.
“Any time you have an arts organization partnering with a non-arts organization, that can be very powerful,” she said. “The fact that it is prominent and displayed on their wall is important to their image. The fact that we can come in and make that happen is pretty cool.”
In order to map out the painting, the three projected the crest onto the wall and traced it. They used a printed version and a police shirt containing the crest to guide them in filling in the colors.
The crest was finished after three days of work.
Hadfield said that she was glad to play a role in improving their surroundings.
“It shows that the community’s willing to change what they need to change. If it’s dirty, they’re going to clean it. They’re not just going to leave it there,” said Hadfield.
Brau agreed, saying that she would like to see murals around the city to help continue improvements.
“[We would like to see] words of wisdom or nice pictures that the community can contribute to, not just people working at art studios,” she said.
Salinas suggested that Coatesville could follow the example of Philadelphia’s Mural Arts Program where the city worked with graffiti artists and community members to create murals.
