In the fall of 2004, poems by three Toledo-area students were graphically interpreted by three Bowling Green State University graphic design majors for application to six Toledo Area Regional Transit Authority (TARTA) buses.

TARTA and the Arts Commission of Greater Toledo partnered with representatives of Bowling Green State University to provide the opportunity for local artists to encourage the community’s exposure and appreciation for the arts through the artistic enhancement of public transportation. The program objective is to invite the public, schools, businesses and local agencies to participate in expanding the visual, literary and musical arts throughout the region.

For the inaugural program, TARTA collaborated with the Young Artists at Work (YAAW) program to produce a poetry contest. This six-week summer youth employment opportunity enables diverse and at-risk youth to benefit from an intense exposure to the arts. The opportunity provides exposure to the concept of art as a business, as well as the creation of public art for the greater Toledo community.

For the introductory phase of this program, author Larry Levy developed a creative-writing curriculum focusing on poetry with the theme of bridges. The students worked once a week with Levy, and each student developed poems that were judged by a panel of professional writers, professionals, professors and TARTA representatives. Three poems were chosen to be graphically expressed in the form of bus wraps.

The selected poems were given to Luc Hughart, Stephen Fowler and Ben Morales under the creative direction of Mary Dawson. The artists created visual interpretations of the poems to envelop six TARTA buses. The submitted designs were reviewed, on a competitive basis, by a second panel of judges consisting of TARTA representatives and members of the Arts Commission’s Art in Public Places committee.