OCEANSIDE, Calif. (KGTV) – Beyond cars whizzing by on South Coast Highway, you might hear Robert Parker doing what he calls “artistic noodling” on a piano.
“There's a lot of people that had piano at times in their lives and they don't now. But this is just a way to bring the community together,” Parker said.
Parker is the Vice President of the Oceanside Cultural Arts Foundation.
He's talking about a piano dubbed Miss Mary and the four others in the Foundation's Public Painted Piano Project, which is available for everyone to play.
“The whole idea is to have these beautifully adorned instruments around town to lift someone's day even if they're not a musician,” Parker said.“Sometimes we have people that are that are unhoused or homeless folks that will come and sit down and they'll discover something.”
Parker founded the project, which he says started in 2019. But the tune was cut short by the pandemic and started again late last year.
He told ABC 10News that the gently used pianos are donated, so they don’t come at too much cost.
“However, the cost of moving pianos, a piano mover, is not without a cost as well,” Parker said. “As we put these institutional style wheels on the piano which allow us to move the piano easily or anyone that chooses to be a host to move the pianos easily.”
Parker tells me some of the project’s funding from the Cultural Arts Foundation also goes toward North County arts who jazz up the pianos into the eye-popping instruments and to piano tuners.
Parker said the next piano is going to the new Star Theater location.
“I would like a dozen out by the end of the year,” Parker said.
Parker hopes to paint the town with these painted pianos.
But, outside of money, he needs a place to store them so he can acquire them and a different kind of donation.
"Well, I hope to build an army of volunteers,” Parker said. “They'll be good stewards. They’ll help us. Look after the pianos, maybe wipe the keys down. Maybe somebody will adopt a piano. And pull it in and pull it out with the permission of the host site.”
It all goes back to the whole purpose of the project.
“It builds community through the arts,” Parker said.
