LAWRENCE, Indiana — For Casper Jones, skating is life.
“It means everything,” Jones said.
Jones builds custom skateboards for a living. When he’s finished working for the day, he heads out on his own board.
“It's like therapy," Jones said.
Jones most certainly noticed when the local skate park in Lawrence was getting run-down.
“The park was neglected for too long,” Jones said.
And when he rolled in one day this summer and saw a giant slur had been added to the other graffiti, Jones said he'd finally see enough.
“That was the last straw,” said Jones, who decided to do something about it.
He left the Lawrence skate park and headed to City Hall — straight to the parks department and director Eric Martin.
“Most people just complain and don’t have solutions,” Martin said.
But Jones had come with a vision.
“They’re gong to actually bring in some artists and do graffiti art,” Martin said.
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They plan to paint over the ugly and offensive words with images that are beautiful and inspiring.
“The project is making this park beautiful, to make sure people have pride in it and take care of it,” said Jones, who is also a member of Skate Park Respect, an international nonprofit organization that works to “conserve skateparks and skate spots through outreach, cleanup efforts and responsibility within the skating community.”
The city is paying for the paint and materials. Jones and a group of others will do the work — and it's a lot of work.
“But we love our park, so that's why we want to do it!” Jones said.
Jones has been scrubbing concrete by hand and smoothing down surfaces to prepare for the project.
He recruited local artist Rob Bentley, who is organizing the effort to bring in nearly 20 other artists to cover every inch of the park.
“I’ve divvied it up into 10- to 14-foot panels,” Bentley said. “Every elevated surface in this park is gonna be painted.”
“And in the middle of the park, we're doing the seal of Lawrence, just to make sure we’re giving a nod to the city’s goodwill in everything," Jones said.
Jones and Martin run in different circles, to be sure.
"I hurt just thinking about it,” chuckled Martin, referring to skateboarding.
But their mission is the same.
“This is about bringing the community together,” Jones said. “The city's given us something big, we better take care of it.”