'Mobile Mural' bus takes art to the streets

One local artist expanded the color palette in a town that bleeds Carolina blue.

Mary Carter Taub created a piece of installation art on a Chapel Hill Transit bus. The “Mobile Mural” in an array of colorful, intersecting stripes was inspired by a map of Chapel Hill and Carrboro’s bus routes.

“(The design) is then overlaid with my version of road mark patterns that you see on streets and highways, such as double yellow lines, dotted yellow lines and zebra stripes in pedestrian crosswalks,” she said.

The piece is part of the Downtown Art Program, which is a Chapel Hill-wide effort to bring in local and public art to enhance and brighten the downtown environment.

When the project was proposed, possible canvases for this mural included bus shelters and parking lots. But the Downtown Art Program and Taub, who specializes in installation art, agreed that a bus was a great way to showcase artwork while integrating it into the community.

“Public art is very appealing to me because it is presented in the public arena, outside of the traditional museum and gallery network, allowing access to a broader audience,” she said.

“A Chapel Hill Transit bus was the best option to reach a wide net of folks.

“It is very exciting to create a work that blends aesthetics with a practical or utilitarian need,” she said.

Steve Wright, Chapel Hill’s public art coordinator, who worked with Taub on the mural, said he finds her work to be a perfect example of art blended with the community.

“She creates entire environments — installations in storefronts, cafes, buses,” he said. “She goes beyond the typical ideas of art as a painting on a wall or a sculpture.”

Taub created the Mobile Mural out of different colors of duct tape over a pencil sketch of the transit routes. She has constructed past installations out of other common materials, such as sticky notes.

“I enjoy responding to — and shaping — space,” she said.

“I especially like unconventional spaces as they provide interesting physical constraints.”

Taub said she prefers community-based projects because they allow her to use both her left and right brain.

“It allows me to flex my business muscles and utilize my project management skills all under the umbrella of making art — the best of both worlds,” she said.

The vinyl-wrapped bus, which Taub considers part of the “2.0 version” of her career as an installation artist, will be in service until February 2014.

UNC students, such as sophomore Kelly Duffy, have already noticed the difference the bus makes in the campus surroundings.

“Everything in Chapel Hill is about the school and none of it is about art,” Duffy said. “I think the bus is a great way to incorporate art into everyday life in Chapel Hill.”

Taub’s goal is to continue pursuing public art projects with a greater community emphasis. She said her installations, in addition to giving art to community, give community to her.

“One perk to making public art is that I meet so many different types of people,” she said. “I especially enjoy the casual conversations and spontaneous social interactions that arise during the public art process.”

arts@dailytarheel.com