08. Salem Street Art Walls

The Salem Street Art walls are located on the west side of the Salem Street parking structure and were created by Dayton Claudio in 1996 this was the city of Chico's first public art project and boy was it in an adventure to try and find artists to do the project to get the public to understand that something of this size would cost a fair amount of money these days it is made of fiberglass and Dayton Claudio was primarily a ceramic artist who decided that he really wanted to celebrate Chico and all the wonderful things that you go is including nature and history and farming and he really did a beautiful job with that by going out and going into the into nature getting leaves and rocks and going and finding old tools at auctions and then creating a clay mold with these actual objects and then pouring the fiberglass over the mold and creating all these panels that he then installed on the side of the Salem Street parking lot and it really has held up it's an amazing example of someone who put a lot of time and effort into researching the project itself researching the materials he covered it with a UV covering that we now many murals and artworks in Chico use that same UV covering and it really has done an amazing job maintaining the color and vibrancy of this beautiful mural.