Murals For The Masses

Friday, April 03, 2009
By JEFF THEODORE
JOURNAL ARTS EDITOR

Dylan Evans isn't an artist yet he's fueling a ground swell of artistic movement throughout Jersey City.

The 33-year-old Jersey City resident's concept of painting murals on Jersey City buildings is gaining traction in city government circles and drawing interest among prominent artists worldwide.

"My idea for this came from seeing what's going on in other cities," Evans says. "You see beautiful murals in places like Philadelphia and San Francisco. I didn't understand why art collectives here or the city itself haven't tried to push for more public art. There's the mural on Christopher Columbus (Drive) but nobody's really talking about it. I want people to see something in their neighborhoods that's beautiful, positive and brings a smile to their faces."

Greg Brickey, the city's art curator, recalls that the Christopher Columbus mural, which took about a year to complete and two years to plan, was a $250,000 city project under the Bret Schundler administration a decade ago.

Brickey, who's in negotiations with Evans to paint murals on a couple of city-owned properties, says Evans' mural plan holds a lot of promise.

"This has the potential to show the city as a place with a really thriving art community," Brickey says.

Evans, who works as a photographer for an artist Web site, curated a group show during the Jersey City Studio Art Tour last year. He recruited a trio of heavy hitter artists to paint the debut mural of his project.

Acclaimed artists Ron English, Jason Maloney and Bigfoot spent 10 hours painting a 7-foot-high by 30-foot-wide drawing on the exterior wall of the Hudson County Arts Supply store on First Street in Jersey City.

Carlos Castillo, a manager at the Downtown arts supply store, says the colorful new mural has generated overwhelming positive feedback.

"People have stopped in with nothing but positive things to say about it," says Castillo. "I definitely think it has helped us draw in more customers."

Evans himself says he's thrilled with how the first mural looks.

"It was exciting to see people from the neighborhood walk up and say good things about it," he says.

Evans foresees at least five public murals being painted before year's end. He's working to appeal to some private businesses to decorate their exterior wall spaces.

"Some property owners who don't follow art have been skeptical," he says. "But we're trying to show them mock ups of what their walls would look like. They may want something a little more subtle than the mural on the arts supply store."

At this point, artists are doing the work on a pro bono basis. In the future, Brickey, the city art curator, says the city may pitch in to fund supplies for participating artists.

"My idea is for every mural to be done by different artists so there is a wide spectrum of talent represented," says Evans, noting that artists Tristan Eaton, Mark Dean Veca and Steve Cerio are on his short list for future murals.

The mayor at Hudson County Art Supply

http://picasaweb.google.com/texaslaur ... yCity#5314679109290520242

http://picasaweb.google.com/texaslaur ... yCity#5314679059413520914

JoyOfSound actually did help us with clearing up things with the City (as well as helping us get Jones Soda & Phili Pretzel Factory to supply stuff for the 58 gallery party). We all wanted to be 100% clear with the city to prevent them from stopping the artists from completing the piece for whatever reason. Everything worked out smoothly (even the mayor came out to take pics with the artists for like five minutes) and the mural was completed. One of the JCIA workers actually came in today and assured us it wouldn't be painted over, so we're set.

Ron did want to do a piece on our wall first since he'd already done his Abraham Obama posters last October and we gladly accepted. Ron got Jason Maloney, and Jason got Bigfoot to do the piece. We donated the supplies, and everything worked out smoothly.

I really hope this settles the "who did/did not do what" issue.

- Carlos
HCAS

Quote:

It's awesome!!! Thank you so much for doing this. . .my friends and I love his work, it's such an honor to have him come and do this here.

At last, a little sense in JC about street art.

Let's see more.

i put together my own blog on the mural project, from my perspective. i guess the cat is out of the bag, i'm the guy that started this project for the city...

http://jerseycitypop.blogspot.com/

fantastic.. i love the neon-dots thing that ties it all together.... yay for public art!

keep an eye around downtown first street next week...

I am a Ron English fan since 111 First Street so I hope this is true

Why would you post something like this on a public list? If it's officially sanctioned then announce it when it happens. If not this is a weird attempt at viral buzz.

that's pretty cool. my guess is a lot of the folks on the jc list aren't going to know ron english, save maybe obama/lincoln or like his work for that matter. but i'll be happy. . . they'll probably come out with their pitchforks and try to take that down too. .

downtown...

don't want to reveal too much just yet.

but the word on the street is....

Where will this mural be?

i heard something could be going up as soon as this month...