SUMMIT TOGETHER - COMMUNITY VOICES SHAPE A VISION OF REINVENTION

Pigment International artists Marlon Tobias, Brenda Dickerson and Jeff Koonz guided residents through an exercise that will inform creative placemaking in Summit.

On Saturday, April 25th, the Summit Community Network's creative placemaking initiative came alive with color, conversation, and community. Approximately 30 Summit residents gathered for a preliminary visioning session — painting, crafting mosaics, and assembling collages that will directly inform the design direction for one of the neighborhood's most ambitious public transformations to date.

The session marked Pigment International's continuing participation in the Summit Together Creative Placemaking project, a collaborative initiative led by The Lights On Collective and supported by SGA Youth & Family Services. The eight-month project will revitalize a basketball court, sheltered pavilion, and community garden spaces at Summit's public library and local park district — weaving art, horticulture, and civic identity into the fabric of daily life.

Pigment International’s Phyliss North is leading a team that includes artists Marlon Tobias, Brenda Dickerson and Jeff Koonz. Other partners include Ignite Glass Blowing Studio and Gary Comer Youth Center's Horticulture Department. The artistic vision for the beautification effort will encompass three basketball court design concepts, custom backboard and bleacher designs, pavilion plans, decorative planters, mosaic garden ornaments, and public signage. The project is spearheaded by April Ellison Kates of The Lights On Collective and carries a deeply personal dimension — honoring Summit's Old Timers Club, of which her father was a member. SGA is represented by Daria Amerik and David Delgado. 

Saturday's session was designed to ensure that resident voices shape every brushstroke. Community members — seniors, families, and young people alike — expressed their vision for what these shared spaces should feel like, look like, and mean. Those ideas will be further refined at a follow-up session, with three design concepts presented to the community May 26th–28th.



The artisans begin work in June. But the community has already begun.