Pugsslane bringing art, vibrancy to downtown Idaho Falls
Take a walk around downtown Idaho Falls, and you will notice things are changing. Part of that is the addition of more street art, with several alleyways now the home of murals. One of those alleys is Pugsslane.
“It just creates a really unique flavor for the downtown area with this fun art,” said Catherine Smith, executive director of the Idaho Falls Downtown Development Corporation.
Pugsslane is an alley off B Street between the Harris Publishing Building and the Roger’s Hotel Building. It started as a senior project by Gibby Smede and is now home to multiple pieces of artwork from a variety of different artists. And it’s constantly changing.
“Different artists will pop in there,” Smith said. “It evolves and changes and grows, and the artwork is constantly kind of evolving, so it’s pretty cool.”
Pugsslane gives local artists an avenue to express themselves and show off what they can do. It also had another, unintentional, side effect: It’s helping decrease the amount of graffiti around downtown.
“We’ve been working hard both with the city and the police department to make sure that we keep downtown Idaho Falls graffiti-free,” Smith said. “And we’ve been pretty successful and grateful that as soon as public art is installed, it seems like folks are really respectful of that space and don’t graffiti it. Knock on wood, of course.”
The Idaho Falls Downtown Development Corporation is looking to expand Pugsslane and bring more art and life to the downtown area.
“Public art is a very important piece of any downtown,” Smith said. “We are thrilled that we have so many pieces of public art currently, from the artistic benches to the murals, that we have downtown, both new and historic. The idea of having this really creative space available for artists not only kind of feeds into that vibrancy, it also shows the importance and the value that we have downtown.”
Artists hoping to show off their work must first get their art approved by email prior to putting it up. If you are interested in participating in Pugsslane, email pugsslane@gmail.com.
