virgin walls here in the heart of the City of Decatur. Te murals throughout the city have been
a vibrant addition to its dynamic. Because of their prominence, they give citizens of Decatur the opportunity to become much more aware of street art and its part in the happenings of everyday life. “Living Walls murals tap into the urban element that is inherent in Decatur,” Squash Blossom co- owner, Talia Blanchard said. “We’ve had a great reaction to [the one] on our wall.” Campana and Migliozzi had a few goals in mind when they came up with the idea. “Our intentions are simply to broadcast to the attendees a wide spectrum of ideas about public space, hoping that everyone leaves the event looking at how the city, its walls and our people interact with space differently,” Campana said. Seniors Evan Hynes and Spencer King,
who had the chance to speak with a few Living Walls artists, took those goals to heart. Tey plan to use their senior projects to create street art of their own. Both Hynes and King loved street art before, but Living Walls has reignited the coals of a previously burning fire inside them both. During his freshman year, King found
inspiration after he took a trip to Slovakia over spring break. “Among all the graffiti [in Slovakia], there was also a lot of really intricate and fascinating street art. Since then, when I see something that I find really interesting, I’ll sometimes make a stencil of it, just to see how well it transfers.” As to why he has become more motivated, King said, “I really want to incorporate the public into public art … I want to show that there’s a huge difference between graffiti and street art.”
One idea that King has for his project is to gather art by different people and place it about the city. He relates this to his fascina- tion with phenomenology, or the study of phenomena. “I’m really interested in the way that things can start in one city, and spread all around the world,” King said. Although both Hynes and King plan to
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explore street art, their ideas as to how are very different in nature. “Street art is not just murals, it’s anything that uses the city as it’s medium,” Hynes said. “What intrigues me
“When a city spends so much money on buffing walls, and we are trying to do quite the opposite, it
creates a challenge.” – Alexandra Parrish
most is walking up to one of the murals on the square and seeing all its individual lines. It really motivates me. I want to do that, too.” Hynes is also interested by global trends and he hopes to express a global concern within a mural, similar to those of Living Walls. “I want to create a movement to stop global warming with just a can of spray paint and my imagination,” Hynes said. As he works out his ideas, he’s considering the impact his wall could have on people. “Street art is something you see in passing, but it leaves an impression, it makes you go home and think about what you saw.” One reason Hynes is so passionate about
his project is because he never grew out of his childhood fascination of creating things
and making art. He has been accumulating inspiration for as long as he has been creating art. “I just have this simplistic need to express myself,” Hynes said. Troughout Decatur, people have no- ticed the development of street art and the potential it carries. “We are just glad to see guerrilla art projects highlighted in Deca- tur. Tey are all so unique and bring a very special modern edge to our historic city,” Blanchard said. Art has been a part of the world’s culture
for millennia. Some of the first artistic creations were etched onto the walls of caves. With these murals and street art, they are tapping into that primal sense of expression; they are reviving a practice that spanned the ancient world for millennia and modernizing it. Living Walls has helped to lift a curtain that hid and belittled the pride and ad- miration of street art throughout Atlanta. “Te murals have offered Atlanta a visual face-lift,” Parrish said. “People want Living Walls, and Living Walls is for the people.” n
“Compared to the street art movements around the world, Atlanta had a very drab and dreary, ur- ban landscape,” Monica Campana, co-founder of Living Walls said. Located across from Dairy Queen, this murals enhance Decatur’s urban element.
OCTOBER 2011 • CARPE DIEM 25
Photos by Kira Hynes
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