BLKOUT walls mural festival
North End Neighborhood
The BLKOUT Walls Mural Festival was conceived by Sydney G. James, Thomas “Detour” Evans of Denver, Colorado and Max Sansing of Chicago, Illinois as a direct response to their shared history of participating in mural festivals throughout the country, where there is no remuneration for the participating artists and where there is limited racial diversity among the artists represented. This initial festival will be the seed of an arts-based economic development, or creative economy, within the North End community.
The Festival opens on Oakland with this gorgeous marker stating the purpose of the Festival. The palette and the trumpet in Arnetta Johnson’s piece strike a joyful and celebratory note.
Sydney G. James’ Girl with the D Earring on the west wall of Milwaukee Junction’s Chroma building was created to combat common negative portrayals of Black people. Its imagery has since become widely known and synonymous with Detroit’s North End community. This week Sydney James shares a building with Max Sansing and the result is stunning. James’ newest portrait is starting to take beautiful shape while Sansing’s electric high res image commands your attention.
Birdcap’s piece is well under way using his signature packed-in storyboard of imagined faces. Birds, monsters, an elf and maybe a pilot keep you looking. You don’t want to miss one engaging figure.
Splash Murals is a throw-back to what’s under James’ Girl on E Grand Blvd. I’m a sucker for abstraction so personal thanks to Maleke, Caririanna, Quinion, Cedric R, Asia, Kevin and Katie R.
Until recently public art traditionally consisted of elegant sculpture arranged in neatly manicured gardens or parks leaving two-dimensional art relegated to gallery and museum walls. Graffiti has been around since Lascaux Cave's Paleolithic I-was-here paintings. Indigenous graffiti has evolved from a name scrawled under a bridge somewhere into beautifully executed pieces displayed proudly where everyone can see them. They’ve also become a source of economic development.
According to a co-founder of the Murals in the Market enterprise, “We’re seeing a windfall of economic development that we really had no idea would be a side effect of Murals in the Market.”
The North End neighborhood is surrounded by extensive gentrification and prosperous communities like Boston-Edison but has yet to reap the benefit from the adjacent high-end housing. Locating the BLKOUT Walls Mural Festival in this area is the impetus to ignite interest in both commercial and residential development. Even unfinished these murals light up the neighborhood.
Participating artists include: Sydney G. James, Birdcap, Max Sansing, Bakpak Durden, Pro Blak, Imagine, Tylonn J. Sawyer, Tony Whlgn, Ghostbeard, Rick Williams, Ijania Cortez, SentRock, Hiero, Dred Ske, Detour, Rahmaan Statik, Just, Marka27, Garden of Journey, Joe Cazeno (Cashiesh), Arnetta Johnson, James Alexander, Miranda Kyle.
The BLKOUT Walls Mural Festival runs July 24th-31st. The completed murals will be permanently on view.
Take the tour throughout the North End community starting with E Grand Blvd and Oakland.
*images are all mine
SHOWS OPEN THIS WEEKEND