Artwork will return to the alley wall in Fountain Square known as “Graffiti Alley” – following the unfortunate event in which workers painted over the well-known artwork. The walls will be repainted with the building owner’s permission on Saturday and Sunday, June 19-20 – the first stage of a three-stage art plan for the area.
A GoFundMe set up by Square Cat Vinyl, whose retail space opens to the alley, has exceeded its initial goal of $10,000, topping $15,000 over by the end of last week, Mike Angel of Square Cat Vinyl reported. Beyond GoFundMe’s required percentage, all funds will be distributed to participating artists in all three parts of the plan, to pay for their time and supplies, as well as to help maintain the art over time.
The participating artists for the first stage are as follows:
Mike Graves with Justin Cooper (https://www.instagram.com/indyartistmikegraves)
Matthew Aaron (https://www.instagram.com/_matthew_aaron)
Kwazar Martin (https://www.instagram.com/kwazarmartin)
Margo Koontz (https://www.instagram.com/stumpedboot)
Mike Meares (https://www.instagram.com/mikemearesart)
Joy Hernandez (https://www.instagram.com/joythestampede)
Dane Smith with Alyssa Day(https://www.instagram.com/danesmith.jpg)
Dan “Handskillz” Thompson(https://www.instagram.com/invisible_hometown)
The first stage will bring back the artists whose work had been mistakenly painted over with beige paint on Thursday, June 3, by an employee of the building owner, K&S Holdings. In addition, Graves, Aaron, and Martin will join in on new spots.
Graves is a staple of arts in Fountain Square and a longtime fixture in the nearby Murphy Building and has invited Justin Cooper, an “OG FSQ artist” to paint alongside him. Aaron is a multi-talented artist from the Broad Ripple area. Martin was recently one of the four artists participating in the Arts Council’s SWISH interactive basketball court mural installations. The artists will start at various times, but most will begin painting around 11 a.m. Saturday.
Stage 2 will focus on artists from Future Friends Holographic Magic Club, a group based out of the Murphy Building in Fountain Square. Future Friends artists will paint in part of Graffiti Alley later this summer and details will be released closer to that time. Stage 3 is still in the early planning stages and will be announced once those plans are finalized. In all, it’s becoming a public-art centered summer in Fountain Square, with a surge of creative energy bubbling up from recent events.
Fountain Square’s Graffiti Alley has been a hotspot for street art for decades. In its recent history, it was a fixture of Subsurface, a gathering of graffiti artists both local and national. All walls are painted with permission from the building owners, and many of Fountain Square’s current murals have stemmed from this effort.
The alley has become a beloved local attraction as both longtime residents and newer arrivals have enjoyed the variety of public art, Angel said.
In the summer of 2019, Square Cat Vinyl commissioned several artists to paint “space-themed” murals on the side of the alley owned by Koehring & Sons, with permission from the building owners. The murals provided a backdrop for that summer’s Back Alley Ballyhoo, presented by Square Cat Vinyl.
PHOTO ABOVE: “Graffiti Alley” as it appeared before the unfortunate paint-over.
