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As a new initiative to battle blight in Baton Rouge, Mayor Sharon Weston Broome announced city-parish workers, nonprofit organizations and local businesses will team up for a five-day clean up dubbed … Read the full article, here.

The Walls Project brings art to life, supporting our community with creative & educational expressions. Working closely with Woman’s Hospital, artists, and a team of creative consultants; a custom-designed installation has transformed an ordinary roof into a joyful expression of nature. The artwork celebrates our coastal region and Louisiana’s wildlife diversity.  Colorful translucent ribbons provide an abstract representation of land and water, supporting playful flora & fauna panels. The rooftop scene is designed to ease the stress of families in an intense medical setting.  Interior interpretive signage provides an educational component for children. The installation is part of the Junior League of Baton Rouge’s $100,000 gift, given in conjunction with its 85th anniversary celebration. Woman's Hospital NICU provides exceptional care for our community, and The Walls Project is honored to be a partner with the Junior League of Baton Rouge on this very special project. Press release available here.

Business Report covers the new public art installation by the Walls Project. Made by Joel Breaux, Stephanie Landry and many more.

225 Magazine covers the Futures Fund's Photography Trainee's photo exhibit at Ann Connelly Gallery.

225 Magazine's Jennifer Tormo covers the Wall's Project's 4th Anniversary featuring a list of all it's current murals.

Business Report covers the beginnings of the Futures Fund program.

Since 2011, Casey Phillips and his team in the grassroots Walls Project (formerly BR Walls) have installed 10 murals in Baton Rouge’s urban core, and another in Brittany, France, last month. Phillips, a music industry entrepreneur who returned to the Capital City to be close to his son, founded the Walls Project to advance local public art. “It came out of necessity,” Phillips says. “When you see that something isn’t there, you either go find it somewhere else or you create it.” That meant recruiting like-minded building owners, entrepreneurs, investors, artists and volunteers for the purpose of revealing the city’s identity through accessible, large-scale art. “The Walls Project is just an extension of what everyone really wants to see happen in Baton Rouge,” Phillips says. “We just give it a physical manifestation.” Phillips wants the Walls Project to secure its future with an assertive, entrepreneurial operating style. The nonprofit plans to raise $1.5 million by 2015, enabling it to hire artists to produce public art in Baton Rouge and elsewhere. “The reason why the Walls Project has been so amazing is because of all these people out there who want to transform the community.” Mentors: Louis DeAngelo Jr., Maxine Crump, Grady Phillips and Ann Connelly Age: 38 Hometown: Baton Rouge Education: Bachelor’s, Loyola University. Who is your mentor or inspiration for your business/professional life? Louis DeAngelo Jr. for Business Strategy & Personal Growth: Just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should…and the empowering use of the ‘Pause’ button. Maxine Crump for Social Justice: You don’t need the majority to enact change where we live. Ann Connelly for the Art Industry: Beyond the lines of creativity the art world is an intense, and high stakes business. Play to your strengths, work hard, & deliver every time. Grady Phillips for Entrepreneurial Development: Some lead by words, others by action. Hard work, and relentless dedication are keys to running your own business. What is the most important thing you learned? As an entrepreneur for the past 15+ years I’ve used the arts as a vehicle to bring happiness to people’s lives primarily through live music promotion. Since moving back to Baton Rouge in 2011 I’m seeing the potential of learning how to work with hundreds of like-minded people all at once to steer this same vehicle but across multiple disciplines of the arts. I let the acronyms & politicians play the complicated 1% power game, and focus our group’s energies at the grassroots level. By partnering with other art & social justice organizations The Walls Project has been able to help the creative community express themselves on a large-scale level. The goal is to move the cultural and social needle forward in a significant manner…and it’s working. I believe that as citizens if we truly start caring about the well-being of one another as much as our own Baton Rouge can become one of the great cities in this world. We have a long way to go because currently the economic benefit of the few far outweigh the needs of the many of this community. An age-old story that we believe will soon have a new ending. For the full article, click here.

This time next year downtown will be a lot more colorful. At least, it will if a new arts group has its way. The collaboration, called BR Walls, is the brainchild of Casey Phillips and Kathryn Thorpe, the formerly California-based principals behind The Force Agency, a consulting firm for branding, marketing, graphic design and events. With more than three dozen volunteers on board, Phillips and Thorpe aim to coordinate one of the largest-scaled public art efforts Baton Rouge has ever seen. Funding and coordinating the creation of both traditional murals and a more modern mobile variety in the form of artistic billboards and banners that can hang over rundown edifices or blank building walls, the group could have its first public art project underway early next month. Attorney and downtown property owner Danny McGlynn is in talks to have several of his available walls painted first. “Baton Rouge already has a strong arts culture,” Thorpe says. “We just need to bring it out to the public, and we hope a mural will begin that process.” Along with former Baton Rouge-based artist Clark Derbes, acclaimed painter Saliha Staib has been tapped to co-create the first piece for BR Walls—a large, colorful mosaic in her delicate, abstract style. Set to work outdoors and around the structural features of the edifice-turned-canvas, Staib says she welcomes the difficulties this project presents. “The challenge is the reason to do it,” says the native of France. “That and it is public, so it is accessible to everyone. Let’s make life in the city. Why keep these walls sad?” Phillips wants the murals to be thought-provoking and challenging enough to become a creative flashpoint for conversation and collaboration in the community. Producing placeholders for pretty colors is not his only goal. “Is everyone going to love every single piece of art?” he says. “I certainly hope not.” Rhaoul Guillaume Jr. of Go Tech Engineering became an early supporter of BR Walls. He sees a citywide mural project as a means for Baton Rouge to brand itself, celebrate its history and look toward the future. “This is a great opportunity to give our city an identity,” Guillaume says. “It’s not just about, ‘Let’s paint this eyesore.’” In 1984, the city of Philadelphia set out to do just that by launching a public arts program to combat rampant graffiti. Since then, the effort has evolved to produce more than 3,500 murals. Jane Golden, executive director of Philadelphia’s Mural Arts program, believes public art holds the power to ignite change within the individuals, organizations and schools that collaborate in their creation as well as benefit surrounding neighborhoods and the city as a whole. “When someone travels through Philadelphia and sees transformative works of public art in every community, they are greeted with moving images of people’s lives, their history, and their stories that might otherwise go untold,” Golden says. “The fact that murals are created by artists in collaboration with the community speaks to the very human side of mural-making. It is the most democratic form of public art.” Largely populated, historically rich cities like Philadelphia are not the only places experiencing a renaissance of public artwork. Ludington, a remote township on the western shore of Lake Michigan, counts just 8,000 residents, but in 2003, an arts group there began documenting the history of the city through large-scale murals. Eleven pieces now grace walls in downtown Ludington, with two additional murals on the outer edge of town and more on the way. The initial focus of BR Walls is downtown, with the goal of raising $25,000 for murals through a Kickstarter campaign. Beyond this initial push and additional downtown projects, Thorpe hopes her group’s murals will inspire other pockets of the city to mount similar public art efforts with only ancillary assistance and support from BR Walls. Most importantly, Phillips wants some of the artwork to address a wide swathe of social issues, to bridge the city’s racial divide and foster a more creative cross-generational dialog. “I hope this starts breaking the oppressive, whitewashed mask that too many people wear in the city,” Phillips says. “There’s a ton of color here just waiting to emerge.” Read the full article here.