A stretch of pavement at Joplin’s Schifferdecker Park is being transformed into an outdoor art gallery. Artists from around the world are creating interactive 3-D pieces as part of the World Street Painting Festival.
They started on Thursday creating art with a theme of Route 66, as the country prepares to celebrate the centennial of the iconic highway next year.
It’s part of Joplin’s contribution to the significant anniversary, according to Patrick Tuttle, president of Visit Joplin. Last year, he said, three American artists created street art in the center of town "more as an education piece so people knew what we were doing, what 3-D art was all about," according to Tuttle. "And this year we have 10 artists. Eight of them are international. Two of them are from the U.S., and they’re doing 10 paintings.”
Next year, they’ll bring 20 artists to town. Tuttle said he’s hoping to have two from the U.S. and the rest from other countries. When all is said and done, the city will have 33 temporary paintings.
Artists use various techniques to make the work feel like it’s 3-D.
Tuttle said people can enter the art itself, be photographed from a certain angle and become part of the piece.
“That’s the fun part. They’re very interactive, and they’re very energetic,” he said.
Street art isn’t meant to last. According to artist Leon Keer with the Netherlands-based World Street Painting Foundation, although the images are temporary, they’re shared all over the world via social media.
In Joplin, the work will be sealed through the 2027 tourist season and then they’ll go away, "which is exciting for the artist because, in fact, most of them paint and then they’re gone the next week,” said Tuttle.
One of the visiting artists is Jean-Marc Navello from France. He’s been creating street art since 2010.
“It’s a really different type of art because we are in the street mostly with the people walking and asking questions, interested in our art," he said, "and I like the idea that the people can have fun and interact with my hard work.”
Navello believes street painting makes art more accessible.
“Many people don’t dare to go inside the museums, and I think it’s a way to bring them to the art,” he said.
Not too far from Navello, Ruben Poncia from The Netherlands was hard at work. The mural by the artist who is also a musician, reflects the song, “(Get Your Kicks) on Route 66.”
“They contacted me for this festival, and they said it’s about Route 66, and I immediately got this song in my head, so I think maybe do something with instruments, and it’s an interactive piece so people can sort of stand or pretend to play the instruments in the photos so that’s the idea," said Poncia."
Another piece at this year’s festival reflects the Joplin area’s Native American history. Japanese artist Canaco Matsumoto is creating the image of a mother and baby with Joplin’s Grand Falls in the background.
Leon Keer’s piece is what he calls “a traditional hole in the ground.” It reflects Joplin’s mining history.
“This will be a mine with some kind of phosphorous shiny effect," he said. "So I will put on this piece, I will put on a special kind of layer of glow so at night it will glow up and also minerals found in this region.”
And another piece by American artist Tracy Lee Stum of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, features a Jackalope and an American flag with the historic Route 66 sign.
Stum got into chalk painting in 1998 when she stumbled upon a street painting festival in Santa Barbara, California, "and I freaked out and saw all these people drawing with chalk on the ground, and I said, ‘hey, that’s my tribe. I’ve got to do that. I’ve got to try it. So the next year I joined, and I realized how much I loved performing in the public space and got a lot of encouragement from that and then just started getting invited to other festivals," she said.
What started as a hobby became a career about four years later. And she’s still at it.
Tuttle said thousands of Europeans travel Route 66 each year. He hopes the attention on Joplin and Route 66 that the World Street Painting Festival brings will lead to even more people visiting the region.
