Published on June 9, 2016 on Morgan Hill Life’s website.
By Staff Report
Photo by Marty Cheek
Lina Velasquez paints cats on a utility box in downtown Morgan Hill.
Cats are coming downtown to the Pop-up Park 2.0. Morgan Hill artist Lina Velasquez, her daughter Camila Rico, and mother Luz Salinas volunteered many hours painting ornate-style cats on utility boxes on the nearby sidewalk as well as a grand piano that will be placed in the new park for people to do impromptu recitals.
The park moved from the former liquor store site on Third Street and Monterey Road up a block to Second Street and Monterey Road where the South Valley Bikes shop once stood. The grand opening of the new temporary park facility will be held noon Friday June 10. It will be even bigger and better than the first pop-up park, which was a success with families, said John McKay, president of the Morgan Hill Downtown Association. That site will soon see construction of four new restaurants.
“I have been involved for the first pop-up park, Velasquez said. “I painted the mural that was promoting the book exchange.”
The grand piano in the new park is “gorgeous” and will invite people to come and play music on it, she said. It will have cats on it to keep with the them of the utility boxes.
“Someone donated the piano. They took it to my home and said paint it,” she said. “It’s something different. The cats, I think, are different for Morgan Hill. All my life I have been painting and I also went to Gavilan to study art.”
See you at the grand opening of Pop-up Park 2.0.
