Sidewalk Stories
Several California cities have cemented a reputation for adorning their sidewalks with clever shadow-themed art. Let’s follow in their footsteps.
This mailbox in Redwood City projects a fanciful “shadow” painted on the sidewalk by artist Damon Belanger. (Photo by Damon Belanger)
The Idea
When I was a boy, I loved Mad magazine, and one of my favorite recurring features was called “The Shadow Knows” (the cartoon’s name was unapologetically pilfered from a popular radio show that emerged in the 1930s and started most episodes with, “Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows!”). In Mad ’s cartoon, an everyday scene was portrayed—say, a woman walking her dog or a teacher addressing his classroom. But the shadows they cast on nearby sidewalks and walls told an altogether different story.
Fast-forward to 2015 when civic leaders in Redwood City were looking for ways to make their downtown district “more vibrant.” Part of that effort resulted in commissioning artist Damon Belanger, from neighboring San Carlos, to create 23 pieces of “shadow art” on the city’s sidewalks.
For instance, a mailbox casts a “shadow”—or rather a likeness of one rendered in gray paint—of a sharp-toothed smiling monster; utilitarian bike racks appear as joyful flowers; and a bench morphs into a ghostly dog (I think).
The idea was conjured by the city’s public art project manager Susie Peyton, who was inspired by a similar project in Long Beach, where decades earlier, artist Craig Cree Stone had painted fanciful shadows on sidewalks that protruded from over 100 parking meters.
Once Redwood City’s shadows were complete, the town of around 80,000 residents—roughly the size of Folsom—began attracting widespread attention in media ranging from Teen Vogue to heavy-weight art and design publications like Hi-Fructose and Designboom magazines.
Thanks to the Wide Open Walls festival, Sacramento is brimming with amazing murals, but what about the blank canvases beneath our feet? The time has come for Sacramento to shine some light on sidewalk shadow art as well.
The Players
The Redwood City Improvement Association and the town’s park and recreation department made their shadow-art project a reality. Here, players could include the Downtown Sacramento Partnership, the Midtown Association, or the city’s Office of Arts & Culture. As for Belanger, the artist says he’s happy to work in the shadows here too.
The Bottom Line
For its downtown revitalization project, Redwood City spent $10,000 on the shadow-art portion. For the Long Beach shadow-art program in the ’90s, the funding came from, of course, parking revenue. Either way, there’s no doubt that such a program would bring welcome buzz to our downtown, which could use some more attention-grabbing whimsy. So, to tweak the intro to that 1930s radio show, “Who knows what joy lies in the hearts of men and women? The shadows know!”
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