Jerome musician Dylan Jung was among the eight inaugural recipients of a $15,000 Radical Unity Grant awarded on July 11 by the Boulder, Colo.-based Mediators Foundation.
Jung intends to use the award to host and organize “Portals in the Park: Painting, Lore, Music and More” at the Jerome Community Garden and Middle Park on Saturday, Aug. 24, from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. and is inviting residents to bring their picnic blankets for a day of arts, kids’ activities, face painting, music and adding to a mobile mural board that will be displayed throughout the town this election year.
“This grant initiative was established to empower individuals and organizations whose creative endeavors harness the power of creativity to foster unity and strengthen the civic fabric across the United States,” the Mediators Foundation stated in a July 11 press release. “Radical Unity is dedicated to harnessing creative expressions to inspire unity and ignite civic engagement across diverse communities in the United States. Through strategic partnerships and innovative grant initiatives, Radical Unity strives to [create] new and unexpected ways of bridging across class, race, sexuality, religion and gender that can create meaningful social change throughout the United States.”
Jazz trio Tria Prima and guitarist Doyle Figueroa will be performing at the event alongside Jung’s alter ego, DJ Lounge Lizard D.
The music lineup is subject to change, but food trucks will be part of the experience. Jung intends to invite attendees to paint their own sections of a mural to express their view of their community or sense of place with the idea that art helps strengthen the civic fabric of the Verde Valley. Another craft project will allow visitors to create gnome or fairy doors alongside Jerome artists including Sarah Love Joy, Rhiannon Ganz Coulombe, Lauren Crosby, Josh Hunt and Damian Gomez.
“The whole event is free and open to the public, and we will be supplying all of the materials to paint on the murals and to create the Gnome and Fairy Doors,” Jung said. “If people have little tiny trinkets, or little things at home that they want to bring to add to their fairy door, then they are more than welcome to do that.”
“It should be a door that could open to anything that you want to see in your future, so a door to change, a door to creativity,” Jung said. “A gnome is sitting outside living at a park, kind of observing its town or community; it’s about kind of looking and watching what’s happening and trying to kind of oversee it and try to protect it.”
“[Music] is the most vague and ephemeral of the arts. You are left open to glean your own experience, from music more than maybe the visual arts,” Tria Prima bass player Cole Vasquez said. “That’s kind of the reason why we play more instrumental to cultivate that idea. We’re looking for people to experience [music] as subjectively as possible. Everybody’s got an imagination. So take you hopefully into that space.”
A typical set list for Tria Prima includes a preponderance of original songs influenced by artists and styles ranging from Mile Davis’ keyboardist Chick Corea to European jazz, world music and progressive rock.
“There’s this French jazz band called Cortex that we cover a couple of their songs,” Vasquez said. “We do a couple of video game covers from ‘Chrono Trigger,’ [an] old Super Nintendo game or ‘Sonic the Hedgehog.’ We occasionally do a Sonic [track] to keep it light because most of our songs are kind of long. So we have some of the shorter [songs] to break it up.”
Vasquez said that Portals in the Park is about trying to integrate the generations and imagination into the arts and local politics.
“We are trying to make this thing a machine that has momentum, so future artists can come to town [and] the next generation sees that it’s OK to spend your time doing more creative acts, and that the community will support them in that [pursuit],” Vasquez said.
Questions about the event can be directed to Jung at sipwineandmusic@gmail.com or (928) 202-8144.
