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Consideration to Allow a Mural to be Painted on the North Facing wall of Firestation 1.
PURPOSE: The purpose of this agenda item is to consider allowing artist, Matthew Willey, to paint a mural on the north facing wall of the Firestation 1 as a part of a larger effort to bring attention and raise awareness to the plight of the Honey Bees.
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DEPARTMENT: Economic and Community Development
CONTACT INFORMATION: Annette D. Stone, AICP Director of Economic and Community Development 919-918-7319
INFORMATION: Artist Matthew Willey is the founder of The Good of the Hive Initiative, (www.goodofthehive.com) and has committed to personally paint 50,000 honeybees - the number necessary for a healthy, thriving hive - in murals across America. Through art and social media engagement, The Good of the Hive raises awareness about the current struggle of the honeybees, celebrates their amazing behaviors, and draws attention to the inextricable connection between people and honeybees.
The Good of the Hive Initiative begins with the struggle of the honeybees, but it also views the hive as a metaphor for communities of people. Honeybees within the hive 'think' collectively; their immune system is collective: the health of the individual is based on the health of the collective. Whether that community is an actual honeybee hive or a community of human artists, kids in a school, military veterans, gay people, women with cancer, marginalized people, skateboarders, or the American people as a whole, the health and success of the individual relies heavily on the connections within the group- and consequently between the groups within the greater society.
Matthew believes when we connect, we thrive. This is the essence of The Good of the Hive Initiative. Matthew realized over the course of the last five years of obsessing about honeybees that his own path as an artist was more aligned to its truth when it was being channeled toward connection-connecti...
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