It’s a dream collaboration.
Two artists, both graduates of Marywood University, will paint the Scranton Tomorrow Mural Arts Program’s first piece at 607 Mulberry St. The mural, titled “The Dream,” will feature Martin Luther King Jr. and one of his quotes, “I have decided to stick with love … Hate is too great a burden to bear.”
Eric Bussart will do the painting, Emmanuel Wisdom A. will do the lettering, and the mural should be completed by June 3, Bussart said.
The two met in college and became artistic kindred spirits.
“We kind of clicked artistically,” Bussart said. “We’ve done a ton of collabs over the years.”
Last year, they worked together to create a mural on a side wall of the Leonard Theater in the 300 block of Adams Avenue in Scranton. The mural there features brightly colored flowers and the words “Human after all.”
Bussart, who has painted several murals in Scranton, designed the upcoming 20-foot by 60-foot “The Dream” mural as a tribute to the slain civil rights leader. He specializes in interior and exterior mural art, album art, illustrated type, portrait illustration and poster, comic and graphic novel art.
Wisdom A., the founder and creative director of UNA Design Co. in Philadelphia, specializes in hand lettering, typography, branding, graphic design, packaging, apparel design, mural and art direction.
The mural will go on the Mulberry Street side wall of the Scartelli Building that fronts on Adams Avenue.
“It’s a collaboration, like fine art meets street art, that’s the way I look at,” said Rose Randazzo-Pizzuto, the murals chairwoman for Scranton Tomorrow.
The backdrop will have symbolism in colorful morning glories, chosen because the flowers are resilient, just as MLK was, Bussart said.
“Ultimately, I just like things to look beautiful and pretty and uplifting for the community,” Bussart said.
This mural is made possible by support from the Lackawanna County Arts and Culture Department and the Scartelli family.
Four architectural column pillars on the wall will not be painted over by the mural, and instead will stand out and highlight that architectural facet of the building.
“It’s nice to get architectural features, preserve them and paint around them,” Randazzo-Pizzuto said.
Next, Scranton Tomorrow plans a three-story-tall mural for a side wall of a building at 328 Penn Ave. that pays homage to Scranton’s role as a stop on the vaudeville circuit.
Downtown theaters often held trial runs of new shows and performances that, if they did well, would move on to New York City. Performers who appeared in Scranton theaters included the Marx Brothers, Buster Keaton, W.C. Fields, Mae West, Harry Houdini, Fred Astaire, George Burns, Gracie Allen and Will Rogers.
A 36- by 100-foot vaudeville-themed mural titled “Danseur de Corde (Rope Dancer)” will be created by artist Joel Carson Jones, an internationally acclaimed artist designated as a “Living Master” by the International Art Renewal Center.
That mural, to be created this summer, will feature the ‘trompe l’oeil’ technique that aims to create an optical illusion of having three dimensions.
A reporter for more than two decades, Jim Lockwood covers Scranton for The Times-Tribune, which he joined in 2011 after working at newspapers in New Jersey. His 2012 reporting of Scranton’s deepening financial crisis garnered him a statewide first-place award for news beat coverage in the Pennsylvania Newsmedia Association’s Keystone Press Awards. He also won the Pennsylvania NewsMedia Association’s Public Notice Journalism Award in multiple years plus national journalism awards from The Public Notice Resource Center, including a first-place win in 2015, and a second-place showing in 2017. Married with three children, Jim lives in Pike County. Contact him at jlockwood@timesshamrock.com or 570-348-9100, x5185.
