Barons Market is gearing up to open its North Park store by Thanksgiving, and will be treating shoppers to organic, natural and specialty food along with the pride of local artwork.<\/p>\n
Amy Baca Lopez of North Park is one of five local artists chosen by Barons to create custom murals in the grocery store and parking garage. Baca Lopez is showcasing a color fest painted on a four-sided, 9-foot-wide, 20-foot-high column towering inside the store.<\/p>\n
Barons hosted a small gathering of local media on Oct. 26 to show off Baca Lopez\u2019s work and served whisky cocktails crafted by a West Coast Tavern mixologist using specialty balsamic vinegar mixes that will be sold at Barons.<\/p>\n Baca Lopez was awarded $2,000, plus the cost of supplies, to paint a mural that illustrates North Park\u2019s kinship for community.<\/p>\n The idea for painting the mural was born from the \u201cbig, ugly column in the middle of the store that we didn\u2019t know what to do with,\u201d said Rachel Shemirani, Barons Market vice president of marketing, who attended the sneak preview. \u201cWe decided on art to reflect the community in the store design as we do in all of our locations. And North Park, an urban, artistic, vibrant, small-business friendly, foodie community, is filled with amazing street art.\u201d<\/p>\n Calls for local artists to \u201ccraft lasting artwork\u201d that would underscore the market\u2019s vision to cultivate community through art and food were made through local news outlets, social media and the Barons Market website. Much to Shemirani\u2019s surprise, almost 40 artists applied. \u201cWe were shocked at the overwhelming response,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n A Facebook tag had alerted Baca Lopez. \u201cApplying was a no-brainer,\u201d she said. \u201cI sent a resume, a cover letter and five samples of my work, one that included oversized orange slices.\u201d<\/p>\n A committee that included the store owners, the marketing team and its retail designers vetted artistic samples and cover letters. \u201cNarrowing the choices proved to be difficult because art is so subjective,\u201d Shemirani said. \u201cThe committee roughly picked the same artists drawing upon the pulse of their art.\u201d<\/p>\n Baca Lopez was a seamless decision for everyone, Shemirani said. \u201cWe love people who love food so we knew we had to meet Amy,\u201d she added. \u201cHer application letter told us that even in college she tied stories of spanakopita or extraordinary orange juice into her writing assignments.\u201d<\/p>\n Baca Lopez described her interview with the committee as a synergistic mix of people on the same wavelength. \u201cWe were all on cloud nine. They showed me the wall and said, \u2018This is yours. Go for it!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Baca Lopez did just that, painting an explosion of \u201cbright, cheerful and colorful\u201d fruits, birds of paradise, a bicycle, a scooter, neighborhood scenes, a woman walking a dog, a map shape of California and \u201clots of happy phrases.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI painted larger-than-life orange slices high enough to look like the sun and the moon shining in the sky and built the mural from there,\u201d she said. \u201cNothing says North Park like a Bird of Paradise, and I added a bicycle to add even more to the neighborhood spirit.\u201d<\/p>\n The self-described \u201cartist ever since I was born\u201d did not disappoint the Barons team. The committee quickly opted to sacrifice retail space and eliminate a wine display originally intended to sidle the top of the column so Baca Lopez could paint up to the apex.<\/p>\n \u201cI paint what makes me happy,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s fascinating to watch people connect with my art. This morning, the Markets owner Joe gave me a hug and said, \u2018Thank you.\u2019 That was awesome.\u201d<\/p>\n Baca Lopez is no stranger to recognition. The New Mexico native was awarded a key to the city of Albuquerque for a \u201cbunch of good deeds\u201d performed during her tenure as a graphic artist that included the Zipper project \u2014 a walk and ride map along Historic Route 66, Albuquerque\u2019s central corridor. Zipper educated and encouraged residents to shop locally, to utilize public transportation, and to participate with cultural services and museum associations. Baca Lopez attributes the Zipper project as her connection to the \u201cessence and energy\u201d of the Barons Market column mural.<\/p>\n The Barons Market committee also met with four other artists to further expand the grocery\u2019s artistic endeavor. \u201cThe overwhelming talent of the artists made us reconsider our initial plan to choose just one,\u201d Shemirani added. \u201cWith incredible community support we expanded the scope of artwork to three separate murals to weave the very fabric of the community into the store.\u201d<\/p>\n Baca Lopez has completed the first mural, while hand-lettering specialists Roxy Prima and Phoebe Cornog will work on a hallway, and VISUAL owners Jason Gould and Frieda Gould will transform a parking garage wall.<\/p>\n \u201cBarons Markets evolve to reflect the community,\u201d Shemirani said. \u201cNothing is ever cookie cutter. D\u00e9cor is subtle and subliminal to create unique and interesting customer experiences while conveying who we are. Time, energy and love goes into store design, employee hiring and product selection. Releasing artistic control was scary but well-worth the risk. We couldn\u2019t be more pleased with the results.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2014Contact Lucia Viti at luciaviti@roadrunner.com.<\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Por Luc\u00eda Viti<\/p>","protected":false},"author":796,"featured_media":250913,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11555","_seopress_titles_title":"Artistic flair","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11547,11551,11550,11555],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-250912","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features","category-news","category-top-stories","category-uptown-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250912","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/796"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=250912"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250912\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/250913"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=250912"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=250912"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=250912"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"__topwebart2-kw\"](\"https:\/\/sduptownnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/topwebArt2-KW.jpg\")
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