WAUSAU, WI (WSAU) — The Painted Piano Project from Wausau River District is taking its next steps beginning this weekend at the Wausau Center Mall.
Anyone is welcome to make their mark on a new set of pianos during select studio hours on Saturdays, beginning this Saturday at 11am.
River District Executive Director Elizabeth Brodek Field said, “Any community member, 3 to 103, artistic skill or not, can go and leave your touch on the community through painting a piano. Some will be kept at the Wausau Center Mall, some will be placed throughout downtown Wausau when the weather gets nicer.”
Brodek Field says Mid-America Real Estate, the current mall management, jumped at the chance to bring some pianos into the mall itself since the inception of the project.
“They were completely on board with it. It’s actually in our agreement with them. They specifically asked for that project to go in,” she said. “It’s a really great way of bringing people in and engaging them.”
“Mid-America has really been about community engagement, and this is the perfect way of bringing people into the mall, into doing something fun and creative, and really is an experience that they’re trying to get associated with the mall in general right now.”
Inspired by similar projects in larger cities, the first painted piano was placed for public use on the corner of 3rd and Scott Streets late last summer. Some of the new pianos will remain in the mall, but they won’t be tuned until the painting is complete.
