Supporting Local Small Businesses

One thing we at Three Thirty Three Arts have been very proud of this year is our initiative of providing boarded up storefronts that are temporarily closed due to Covid with some uplifting murals on these boards. Oh yeah…for free! Our strategy was to help prevent negative messages and harsh graffiti from exacerbating the already grim prospects for many local small business owners are facing. The mental effect is tremendous as we turned these storefronts into a free outdoor gallery for the community to enjoy. What’s more, we invited a multitude of local participants to contribute, they didn’t have to be an “artist”.

We told businesses that wanted the art we understand the financial strain they are under (as we are in the same boat) so we want to gift them this art. When times are better for them and if they are at a financially better spot again, they can commission some art from our Dragon School artists, or even treat them to a meal, discount at their store etc as a payback. It’s a way for us all to support each other as a community.

Some of our murals have positive social messages, while others are of nature and others are just funky abstract art murals. We wanted to allow the artists and community to work with the store managers and owners on what they might like to see as far as a theme then match them with our artists and volunteers that would be a good match for the art direction they were interested in.

We hope in 2021 Three Thirty Three Arts will experience a boom of commissioned art and donations, but until then, we have our belts tightened and are going forth gifting as much as we possibly can without going under ourselves.

Here are just a few of the many storefronts we’ve done in Oakland, Ca.