Fox River Arts Ramble to feature new Aurora mural

Saturday's Fox River Arts Ramble will feature the first piece of public art to be approved through Aurora's new public art ordinance.

Collage artist Cheryl Holz will display the new piece from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. behind Aurora Fastprint, 54 E. Galena Blvd.

“This will not be a mural in the traditional sense, painted directly onto a wall,” Holz said in a written statement. “ (Fastprint owner Kim Granholm) wanted to employ some of the newest printing technology to wrap the back of the building.”

Granholm commissioned Holz to create a piece of art suitable to adorn the rear of her building, which is adjacent to the Fox River and faces New York Street in downtown Aurora.

The building's rear wall, complete with pipes, a fire escape and several vents, does not easily lend itself to a traditional mural so Holtz created a concept of making another layer of panels and sculpture to cover a majority of those items.

Holz describes the mural as a contemporary piece of art that incorporates references to Aurora's rich cultural artistic, musical, and literary history, and the Fox River that runs through it.

Paint splatters and washes represent the art being made inside the building, and all throughout Aurora. There are nods to the blues history, and the text running through the center is a poem called “Aurora” by Susan Schubert, a member of A-Town Poetics, a local poetry group.

Downtown buildings are seen at sunset with street lamps that gave Aurora its name. The Fox River has small mouth bass, soft-shell turtles, and other species scattered throughout the mural. A 3-D dragonfly made of stainless steel is perched above a dimensional silhouette of native prairie plants, and a monarch perches above the skyline.

During the Ramble, Holz will open her studio for visitors, along with neighboring artist Anne Von Ehr. Schubert will read poetry at 11:30 a.m. and 2 p.m.

Fox River Arts Ramble is a one-day self-guided tour of art along the Fox River from Aurora to Elgin. Downtown Aurora features nine locations to visit. For more information and a map, visit <URL destination="https://www.facebook.com/Atownpoetics/">www.foxriverarts.com