Latest news with #SpringFolly
Yahoo
12-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Kernersville artist seeks solution for downtown mural festival
The organizer of last month's Kernersville Mural Festival might not be able to follow it up as planned with another mural event in November because of the town's sign regulations and a related loss of funding. Last August, local artist Christina Parrish started planning for the festival and estimated that she would have to raise $80,000 to complete first festival, coinciding with Spring Folly in early May, as well as a follow-up event in November. Her goal was to have artists to paint murals on 14 spaces throughout downtown Kernersville. Parrish crowdsourced funding, partnered with the Arts Council of Winston-Salem & Forsyth County, and got some business sponsors for the project. 'Everything was going well with fundraising, and I got three or four business donors that contributed to the event, and moving into the week of the event, we had five murals fully funded,' Parrish said. Parrish said the murals had to comply with the town of Kernersville's sign ordinance, and she met with town staff to review the designs to ensure that the murals were in line. Parrish said the town employees advised omitting any business names and products. 'The week of the mural festival and I sent them the location, sizes, the artists, and the sponsors of the five mural spaces,' Parrish said. That week, Parrish was notified that she was not allowed to include sponsor names on the murals because they would be considered off-premises signs. Off-premises signs can be defined as any sign that indicates direction to, advertises or otherwise identifies any property, structure or use not on the same property as the sign. 'I had to call all of the business-level sponsors and let them know that we couldn't give them public attribution of their funding for these murals, and I had $17,000 worth of sponsorships back out. Two of the murals that would have gone up on May 2 are on hold,' Parrish said, and currently there are just three murals. Parrish said that without the business-level mural sponsorships, funding the rest of the project will be a challenge. 'We will need to raise approximately $68,000 for all remaining 11 murals to be painted. That gives 5% of all funds raised to ... the Arts Council of Winston-Salem & Forsyth County, and 95% to the artists, which equals to $35 dollars per square foot that is painted. I'm an advocate for getting artists paid what they deserve, so if we don't get the funding, the result is simple. We just won't be able to add the murals,' Parrish said. Parrish attended the Kernersville Board of Aldermen meeting on May 28 to seek a resolution that would allow business-level sponsors to receive recognition. Town Manager Curtis Swisher gave the board options: to leave the Unified Development Ordinance as is and proceed without sponsors, to use town funds to pay for the murals as a public art project, to change the off-premises sign ordinance, or consult with an outside legal counsel on the issue. The discussion about the Kernersville Mural Festival will be revisited during the board's meeting on Aug. 5. Parrish said Phase 2 of the mural festival is still scheduled regardless of the decision made by the board. 'I'm still accepting donations for it to happen (but) if I don't get any further donations, no further murals will be able to be painted. Should they decide to work something out where private business-level sponsors are able to be recognized for their donations to the town, we will immediately have the funding for about three more murals,' Parrish said.
Yahoo
03-05-2025
- Yahoo
Public Services prepares for the Spring Folly
Every year, over 30,000 people descend on Kernersville for the three days of Spring Folly, Kernersville's largest festival, but that only follows days of work by town crews to try to the visitors have a pleasant experience. About a month before the Spring Folly, workers with various town divisions begin to do beautification projects such as landscaping and maintaining public spaces, Streets Division Supervisor Edgar Colon said. 'It goes with our image. We're a small town that's very neat and organized,' Colop said. Spring Folly gives Kernersville an opportunity to showcase the town and visitors might be drawn in by the town's overall impression, Public Services Supervisor Mike Tester said. 'If they're visiting and riding through, they might like what they see and stay,' he said. Crews from Public Services work in tandem to eliminate safety hazards and spruce up downtown Kernersville, Public Services Dupervisor Joshua Levins said. 'We go around downtown, and we'll grind out the concrete to get rid of trip hazards on the sidewalk and we'll reset any bricks that are loose. We also have crews putting out mulch,' Levins said. Levins emphasized the importance of public safety during Spring Folly. 'We're putting up signs and barricades for the road closures. The Kernersville Police Department will have their cars there and the Sanitation Department will have their trucks there making sure no vehicles can get in, keeping it safe for everybody,' Levins said.
