The Syracuse Poster Project will unveil the 2010 poster series Thursday, April 8, at 6 p.m. in the atrium at City Hall Commons, 201 E. Washington St., Syracuse.

The Poster Project brings together poets and Syracuse University artists to create an annual series of poetry posters for the poster panels of downtown Syracuse.

The project enlivens downtown, strengthens the city’s sense of place, and reaches the larger community by selling small prints of the large posters.

Each year since its founding, in 2001, the project has produced 16 unique posters. Each poster features an illustrated poem about the downtown, city or nearby countryside.

The 2010 series includes 15 posters created by a class of advanced illustration students taught by Roger DeMuth, associate professor in SU’s College of Visual and Performing Arts, and one supplemental poster created by Eric Johanni, a graduate student in print making.

The student artists work in a variety of styles, including decorative, pattern-based, landscape, caricature, graphic and painterly. The resulting posters pay tribute to nature, highways and byways, home ownership, café culture, local industry, childhood recollections of downtown, city landmarks and Irish heritage.

The unveiling culminates nearly a year of collaborative work. Over the summer, participating poets wrote the three-line form of poetry known as haiku. By the September deadline, some 90 poets had submitted 176 new poems.

The unveiling will gather the poets and artists, friends of public art, representatives from the project’s corporate sponsor, Seneca Federal Savings and Loan Association, and representatives of the following patrons: Geddes Federal Savings and Loan Association, O’Brien & Gere, Hueber-Breuer, Anaren and National Grid.

The Downtown Committee of Syracuse will post the posters shortly after the unveiling. The posters remain on display for a year.

Beyond the poster panels, the project reaches the larger community by selling 11-inch by 17-inch prints of the posters and by exhibiting a complete set of the prints at a different downtown venue each month. Prints can be purchased at Eureka Crafts in Armory Square, at the Copy Centers, 131 S. Salina St., and at the project’s online store: http://www.posterproject.org. All proceeds help the project become self-sustaining.

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Written by Jim Emmons • (315) 424-8099