The new Downtown Menlo Park Art Walk is being expanded

Elevate Art Menlo Park makes our downtown more pleasant.

I am one of four Menlo Park residents currently building a unique public art trail in Downtown Menlo Park that will use contemporary art by Bay Area artists and install it on the buildings of local businesses. The others are Christine Duval, Debbie Hall, and Jeff Kleck. Our nonprofit organization, Elevate Art Menlo Park, works with retailers, restaurants, and building owners, commissions artwork, and fully manages all aspects of each art installation. We share the desire to make our downtown more attractive and believe that quality art can enrich our community and lift everyone’s spirits.

Elevate Art Menlo Park offers more flexibility, lower costs, and much shorter planning and installation timelines than typical public art projects because we do NOT rely on public funding, public ownership, and local government decisions. We are an independent, action-oriented team comprised entirely of volunteers.

In July we installed Le Mont Rouge (See Figure 1) – the fifth art exhibit in our current collection on the Doyle Street side of the Left Bank restaurant. We intend to add at least three more art locations and rotate the artworks on display. Our success depends on the strength of community support, not only from Menlo Park businesses and building owners, but also from the residents of Menlo Park and Atherton. We need both additional locations and private donations.

Please contact us to find out how you can help.

Le Mont Rouge + Left Bank

Le Mont Rouge is a Provencal landscape by Palo Alto-based artist Flo de Bretagne. Its composition, intense colors, and flat perspective create an image that contrasts starkly with traditional artistic depictions of rural settings. It was the perfect choice for the Left Bank, a popular French restaurant, and its visual impact is enhanced by the building’s deep ocean blue color.

The Left Bank has become a wonderful partner for Elevate Art Menlo Park. They immediately responded positively to our invitation to participate in the Downtown Menlo Park Art Walk and then supported us through every step of the planning and installation of Le Mont Rouge. We couldn’t be happier with our relationship.

“I loved the outdoor art I saw while walking around Menlo Park, but I didn’t know about the Downtown Menlo Park Art Walk program, so when Left Bank received an invitation to participate, I jumped at the opportunity,” said Executive Director Darvin Aragon. “Left Bank has been in Menlo Park for a long time, and I wanted the restaurant and our building to feel even more a part of the community than it already was. The team at Elevate Art was attentive and professional every step of the way and made me feel like we were old friends reuniting for a new experience.”

The Left Bank interviewed artist Flo De Bretagne and the transcript can be found on the institute’s website. For more information about Flo and her work, visit her website.

Current art collection

Here are the other large-scale artworks in the existing art walk. Learn more about the artists and their works using the links embedded below.

Map for the self-guided art walk

Help us build an even better art walk

1. Local retailers and building owners. We need space to mount artwork on your building. Artwork will be mounted on a removable wooden platform. You have final approval for the artwork selected.
2. Residents of Menlo Park and Atherton. We need your financial support to pay artists and install artwork. Elevate Art Menlo Park is sponsored by Intersection for the Arts, a 501(c)(3) organization based in San Francisco, so donations are tax deductible.

Please contact us if you need assistance.

Turn our boring city center into an attractive destination.

Menlo Park has been my family’s home for more than 35 years, and we are very fortunate to have lived here. However, the poor economic situation and poor appearance of our downtown remains a major shortcoming. The evidence is undeniable. More businesses are closing than opening. Numerous long-term vacancies blight Santa Cruz Avenue. Streets and parking lots are poorly maintained, and sidewalks and crosswalks are stained and dirty. Like many cities in the U.S., our downtown is under intense economic pressure. But unlike neighboring cities on the peninsula, e.g. Palo Alto, San Carlos, Redwood City, Mountain View, and Burlingame, Menlo Park has done little to make our downtown more successful, interesting, and attractive—a perfectly attainable goal. In a future post, I will focus on why I believe my city government largely ignores the poor condition and competitiveness of the downtown area, and describe ways in which concerned residents and businesses might be able to change the typical behavior of Menlo Park city councilors of conducting expensive market studies but rarely investing in promising city improvements.

In the meantime, I recommend the residents

• Support – and vote for – council members who believe that improving downtown should be a key strategic priority for our city.
• As with Elevate Art Menlo Park, residents and businesses can make improvements downtown that don’t rely on city investment. For example, Bistro Vida provided the tables and umbrellas for the 600-block-long public plaza, a space that residents, businesses and organizations can use to host events and activities.
• Support new businesses like Levant Desserts as they take significant risks by investing downtown.
• Call on the City Council to make it easier for new businesses to open. Many owners report that Menlo Park is much more difficult to work with than other cities. Menlo Park hasn’t had a full-time economic development director for more than two years, leaving businesses without a person who can help them resolve issues when working with the city.

The Downtown Menlo Park Art Walk

Enrich our community and lift everyone’s spirits!