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Mural outside Avocado Mattress factory in Fullerton, CA by Lina Cholewinski
Beautify Earth had the pleasure of teaming up with Avocado Mattress in Santa Monica to inspire and unite their community through the Pandemic. As not just a mural company but a platform for artists, sponsors and walls to connect, we understand both the value of experiential marketing and the more basic desire to live and work in beautiful places.
The collaboration between Beautify and Avocado began in mid-February, right before the pandemic put everyone behind locked doors. Avocado had just relocated to Santa Monica to open their very first official headquarters, with the manufacturing building located directly behind – a one stop shop for healthy, non-toxic organic mattresses, pillows and more.
With fresh new offices and lots of blank walls, they brought in Beautify to help them create a space that reflects the brand and culture, and get people inspired and excited to come to work.
Our online platform removes the friction from the process, making it easy for Avocado to find and work with professional street artists.
Avocado Mattress is a conscientious company from both social and environmental perspectives, with and an extremely high standard for environmental footprint. They're one of the only 100% organic mattress companies whose products are climate neutral and made with sustainable materials. Avocado also has a volunteer program for employees, and are members of the 1% For The Planet program, donating one percent of their revenues to vetted nonprofits.
Joanna Harrison, Director of Interior Design for Avocado Mattress, says: “With our charitable aspects, Beautify was a natural fit for us.”
Joanna worked with us as a creative partner. She says she was impressed with “the scope of artists Beautify offers, and how excited the artists were to work with us. We have a set visual style, and I was impressed that there were so many options.” Muralist Lina Cholewisnki, who works under the moniker bonesandgold, created a beautiful backdrop for a shared outdoor space. Her mural showcases the interconnectedness of humans and the natural world.
When choosing art for their Santa Monica location, Avocado wanted to blend in with the existing culture of the community. But then COVID hit. Businesses shut down and boarded up during the protests.
Kris Karuna, VP of Business Development remembers, says the city looked like a war zone. “It felt like a turning point for our community and country and a lot of people were experiencing a lot of emotions," he says. "We thought, how could we help people make sense of it? Then it occurred to us that using art is a great way for people to connect with what they are experiencing so we invited artists from Beautify to paint different boards on the store. We did not give them any direction other than to express what they were feeling about the current moment. They created such beautiful pieces that it became a little art gallery of sorts.”
Kris adds, “It became an amazing way to – especially with social distancing – connect community through artistic expression. Part of the effort was that we wanted to generate good will so the plan was to auction the pieces off and half would go to artists and half would go to charity.” In the end, Avocado made the donations themselves and created what they call Avocado Art Avenue: They installed a track system in the wall next to the store that currently displays four of the board pieces, which will be rotated with others as they collaborate more with Beautify in the future.
The city of Santa Monica features Avocado Mattress as a destination—good for the city as well as good for business.
Public art is important. It inspires, makes people think and starts conversations. It brings communities together, evokes feelings and is there for the people, not to sell a product.
Joanna says,“Murals are a great way to become part of a community quickly. The more we can engage at a local level around our retail stores and offices to become more part of the community, the better. We always reach out to local businesses when we start somewhere new. We try to become part of the mix right away. We want to reflect the communities that we are in. We want to welcome people instead of enforcing our brand voice on them.”
Kris takes it further: “Art should not be reserved for the rich, it should be part of our everyday lives the same way music and film and books are. I think that has always been the challenge for art. Also, artists aren’t able to find platforms for expression and I think that Beautify takes advantage of the fact that there is a lot of space that can filled with great content. It’s been awesome to have an org out there that could support us and open us up to other artists that we wouldn’t have been able to connect with. We are looking at other locations in other cities as well – It’s been a really positive experience with Beautify.”
Joanna says, “Murals are a great way to become part of a community quickly. The more we can engage at a local level around our retail stores and offices to become more part of the community, the better. We always reach out to local businesses when we start somewhere new. We try to become part of the mix right away. We want to reflect the communities that we are in. We want to welcome people instead of enforcing our brand voice on them.”
For more information, reach out to us. We look forward to hearing from you. Let's beautify your community together.