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DES MOINES, Iowa — The Des Moines Parks and Rec Department is looking for artists to make the city’s trail system more visual. The 2024 Trail Art Corridor Contest launched earlier this month.

Four previous Trail Art Corridors will receive new art this year: Walnut Creek Trail, Neal Smith Trail, John Pat Dorrian Trail, and Carl Voss Trail. The Bill Riley Trail is the only existing art corridor that won’t get new artwork.

Artwork will be added at two more trails, the Gay Lea Wilson Trail on Des Moines’ east side and the Karras Kaul Connector Trail near Carlisle.

“I absolutely do think that all the creative things we do that add value to our park system, give you one more reason to go out and use those trails, is one of the things that people look at. It’s ‘why is Des Moines so unique?’ It’s not a secret to me why we have such great passionate staff in there. The credit goes to them. They come up with all these wonderful ideas. And it came out of COVID, right? How do we get people to stay outside? That was one of the first things we saw, was the increased use of our park system and our trails. And golf courses just skyrocketed in use. But how do we keep that going? We know that when they’re outside they’re doing more healthy things than maybe sitting in front of a screen,” said Ben Page, Director of Des Moines Parks and Rec.

Artists can submit their contest entries through July 7^th here.