💐 Spring has sprung in Atlantic City: Public Art in Full Bloom!

May 2025 NEWSLETTER

Hello Subscriber First Name —

Spring has sprung in Atlantic City! The Atlantic City Arts Foundation is flourishing this spring with a garden variety of public art installations and events. Our Spring Arts Mixer celebrated the season’s fresh start: we welcomed 117 community members and 15 featured artists at Anchor Rock Club on National Mural Day.

Stephanie Segal Miller returned to reinstall the whimsical Z is for Zebra mural, while Tabitha Brown added fresh artistic life to the newly reopened Atlantic City Aquarium with her Cosmaquatica planters, depicting the marine life visitors can greet inside, and a burst of color arrived on Farmers Row with the Blooming into a Beautiful Neighborhood mural, a vibrant reflection of the redevelopment afoot on Pacific Avenue painted by muralist Heather Deegan Hires and designed by student artist and city resident Rai Chowdhury. We are proud to have contributed these public art installations to our city, and of our partners who value the arts in our community. It’s been a delight to see so many friendly faces at our recent events and activities!

We are committed to providing pathways for artists and community partners to add public art to their spaces and projects. To ensure the continued growth and vibrancy of public art in Atlantic City, we need your help. It’s no secret that changes in federal funding will mean lean times ahead for the arts – it is crucial for our supporters to step up on behalf of the arts. We encourage you to act on your passion and become a monthly donor. Your consistent contribution, no matter the amount, can make a difference for our small organization. If you are reading this, you are already a part of the city’s vibrant cultural tapestry, and together we can continue to engage our community through public art, create opportunities for working artists, and inspire deeper and more meaningful connections to the arts for locals and visitors.

Bye for now,

Michael Atkins

SUPPORT OUR GROWTH—MAKE A CONTRIBUTION

Interested in participating in future mixers? Submit your information!

We didn’t need any special permits to bring Stephanie Segal Miller’s zebra back to Atlantic City, so we did. "It was a joy to return to Atlantic City,” Stephanie says. “The community welcomed me back with open arms, children zipped by on bicycles and visited with us after school, residents stopped by to talk, offered us food and drinks, and there was the happy surprise from a woman who told me her grandson had memorized the text, which celebrates each person’s uniqueness.”

“Every zebra’s stripes are unique, just like the fingerprints of that other exotic, fascinating, unique animal – the human being. You!”

Stephanie adorned this positive message on a 50-foot wall in the Northside neighborhood, spelled out emphatically in large black-and-white capitalized text, and validated by the larger-than-life illustrated zebra standing proudly on the adjoining page, a spread inspired by the artist’s original children’s book U is for Urial: An Animal Alphabet.

When Stephanie first painted her Z is for Zebra mural in 2021, residents and neighbors of the nearby Shore Park Hi Rise visited with the artist at work and shared compliments and stories, admiring and engaging with the piece in their own unique ways. Whether it was assisting a grandmother in teaching her grandson to read, or serving as the exotic background in product photos for a custom sneaker designer who lives next door, the zebra was a well-loved creature in an often overlooked, in-the-cut neighborhood.

In the years since, underlying insufficiencies in the wall required repair and complete removal of the mural. Without adequate preparation to the wall surface, any mural is subject to accelerated deterioration from natural elements like sun exposure, humidity, rain, and freeze-thaw cycles. Long-lasting murals also require a UV-protective clear coat to guard against sun damage that dulls dark and vibrant colors, and an anti-graffiti coating to protect against vandalism. The Atlantic City Arts Foundation maintains an ongoing partnership with the Casino Reinvestment Development Authority (CRDA) to seal, protect, and clean outdoor murals in support and service to public art and its preservation.

Keep reading to learn more about Stephanie’s reinstallation process!

📣 New Public Art

Photos by Ruben Garcia, 2025.

🌸 Heather Deegan-Hires transformed Rai Chowdhury’s winning t-shirt design into a bright, uplifting mural—officially mural #102 installed by ACAF! Located in the newly-coined Farmers Row neighborhood, this mural celebrates recent developments in the area like the indoor hydroponics facility managed by CROPS.

GO SEE ⤵️

🎨 Blooming into a Beautiful Neighborhood. Rai Chowdhury, 2025.

🖌️ Installed by Heather Deegan-Hires

📍 Texas & Pacific Avenues, Atlantic City

🙏 Funded by Chelsea EDC in partnership with C.R.O.P.S., Reeds Farm, and Caring Inc.

Photos by Sydney Vuong, 2025.

🪸Next time you visit the Atlantic City Aquarium, you’ll be taken on a fantastical intergalactic aquatic journey! Tabitha Brown’s Cosmaquatica planters combine dark, starry, deep-space galaxies with vivid, dynamic sea creatures swimming in space.

GO SEE ⤵️

🪴 Cosmaquatica. Tabitha Brown, 2025.

📍 Atlantic City Aquarium, 800 N. New Hampshire Ave, Atlantic City

🙏 Funded by Inlet CDC.

SUPPORT PUBLIC ART IN ATLANTIC CITY!

🎉 UPCOMING ARTS & CULTURAL EVENTS

June is PRIDE MONTH 🏳️‍🌈✨🏳️‍⚧️

Atlantic City venues and organizations, including the City of AC, are hosting events to celebrate Pride this June.

To Find Events, Follow: @acprideofficial | @byrdcageac

And Check Out: visitatlanticcity.com/events

Prudential North to Shore Festival Coming to AC in June!

Prudential North to Shore Festival will present a special concert event in Atlantic City on June 14 to kick off the festival, which now features year-round community-based programming!

Don’t miss Weekday Underground’s “Orange Loop Block Party” at noon on June 14th in the Garden at Cardinal—ACAF is providing paint for interactive art-making and professional murals. Check out the full Atlantic City schedule on northtoshore.com.

Global Grooves by Chelsea EDC

🗓️ Sunday, June 15, 2025 at 1 pm
📍 O’Donnell Memorial Park, 3501 Atlantic Avenue, Atlantic City

Grab your friends and family and immerse yourself in a vibrant tapestry of sights, sounds and tastes at Global Grooves—a multicultural celebration in the heart of Atlantic City’s diverse Chelsea neighborhood. This free family-friendly festival hosted by Chelsea EDC will transform O’Donnell Memorial Park into a colorful world marketplace filled with music, movement and so much more. Live Art presented by Atlantic City Arts Foundation.

The Atlantic City Arts Foundation is a 501(c)3 public arts non-profit, dedicated to increasing public art access and fostering community art education in Atlantic City, NJ. Through programs and partnerships, ACAF promotes arts-based tourism and economic development initiatives while increasing community pride and civic self-esteem. Programs include 48 Blocks Atlantic City, Chalk About AC, and ARTeriors.

GIVE TODAY