Painting the town: South Bend hosts first-ever mural festival. Here's what to know.
SOUTH BEND — What’s the inspiration to organize a mural festival? For Alex Ann Allen, it was attending her first festival two years ago.
Allen, a local muralist and portrait painter, says everyone can learn something new from every mural festival. But for "Mural Mania" specifically, she wants everyone to know how much South Bend loves art.
“When you go into Chicago or another bigger city, you see these murals,” Allen says, “and I want that in South Bend.”
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Mural Mania, the first mural festival of its kind in South Bend, invited artists from across the country to set up shop for five days and each work on their own wall to create a public work of art. The event goes through Sunday.
Four sites in South Bend are currently receiving a paint makeover: Hammer and Quill, Cloud Walking Coffee, The Cellar Wine Bar and South Bend Civic Theatre. The planned mural at the Garage Arcade Bar will be painted at a later date because one of the artists contracted COVID-19.
Allen has been planning the festival for South Bend since last October with the help of Downtown South Bend and nearly 700 donors. All of the artists were personally invited by Allen.
Three of the murals were paid for by the building owners, including Cloud Walking, Hammer and Quill and Arcade Bar, Allen said. For the other two walls at Civic and The Cellar, sponsors donated money and Allen was free to choose where the murals would go up.
“(The sponsors) didn’t necessarily care where it was at,” she said. “They just wanted to support.”
Muralists inspired by South Bend
Once she had five locations and five artists, Allen matched each one up based on art style, space to paint and the desired theme of each mural location.
Even though none of the muralists call South Bend their home, each are taking a piece of the city to paint into their mural.
Candy Kuo of Austin, Texas, likes to paint a lot of flora and fauna in her artworks. For her piece on the south side of The Cellar, she chose to incorporate pink peonies to give her mural a touch of South Bend flowers. She also added butterflies to her design to match with butterfly accents on the west side of the building.
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At Civic, muralist Cameron Moberg of San Francisco drew on the theater’s mission to “be a light to illuminate the darkness” by incorporating a lantern into his prominent mural on one of the theater’s back exterior walls.
A Los Angeles-based artist, Daniel, aka. “Mr. Toledo,” is painting at Cloud Walking Coffee. He chose to focus his mural on fireflies, which he first saw on his previous trip to Indiana.
“I had never seen them in my life,” he said. “I was just so amazed by them.”
He said Allen pitched him on the idea to paint it “like a memory” of kids catching fireflies. On one side of his work, a jar of fireflies sits in the hands of a young child. On the other side, you can see the wonder and awe of a young girl looking at the bright bugs she has caught.
“I’m sure a lot of kids here collect them in jars and then let them go at the end of the night,” he said.
Over at Hammer and Quill, Brittany Johnson of Austin, Texas, chose to paint a mural of “self-growth,” with a woman surrounded by blooming flowers. Johnson had slightly different plans for the mural but when she saw the space, she adjusted.
“It was going to be a bit bigger, but then I made it smaller so that when you’re driving by, you can see the whole thing,” Johnson said.
What it takes to paint murals
Because the murals are all outside, artists have had to deal with hot, humid summer conditions while painting. However, Kuo said, it was a nice relief from Texas, where she is used to painting in three-digit temperatures.
“It’s definitely one of the trickier parts about painting during the summer,” Kuo said of the humidity and heat, “But we love doing it.”
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At Hammer and Quill, Johnson said she planned to paint most of the evening, after the sun went down a bit and gave her shade on the eastern side of the building. Her dog Charlie, who she brings to all her mural festivals, was lounging in her car until more shade was available.
Allen and other volunteers brought baskets of water and snacks around to the muralists while they worked at their locations.
Although the artists don’t have a hard schedule and deadline to abide by, the official festival lasts only five days and ends Sunday. However, Kuo said, she was glad for the length of Mural Mania.
“Five days for a mural festival is actually, I would say, almost leisurely,” she said.
A bright future for public art
Downtown South Bend Executive Director Willow Wetherall sees a future full of possibilities when it comes to public art: “There’s no shortage of wall space, no shortage of interest and no shortage of talent.”
Already, she says, there’s interest on social media in more locations around South Bend getting spruced up.
The materials used to paint the outdoor murals — mainly aerosol spray paint — will not require much upkeep by property owners or the city, Wetherall said. The spray paint is long-lasting, UV-resistant and doesn’t peel or flake easily.
Wetherall also pointed to the historic look that murals can give to the city.
“Honestly, murals in our community that have been there for a while sometimes fade but it just adds to the piece,” she said.
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Even though Mural Mania is Allen’s first experience as an art curator, she is already looking to future festivals.
When asked what was next, Allen laughed and said: “Maybe Mural Mania 2.0. We’ll see.”
Artists have no set schedule and will be out painting at various times throughout the day through July 10. There will be a casual "after-party" from 5 to 10 p.m. July 9 at Howard Park.
Mural Mania
Hammer and Quill: painted by Brittany Johnson at 613 E. Jefferson Blvd.
Cloud Walking Coffee: painted by Daniel, “Mr. Toledo,” at 1215 E. Mishawaka Ave.
The Cellar Wine Bar & Kitchen: painted by Candy Kuo at 702 E. Jefferson Blvd.
South Bend Civic Theatre: painted by Cameron Moberg at 403 N. Main St
For more information, visit https://www.downtownsouthbend.com/muralmania.
Email Alysa Guffey at aguffey1@gannett.com. Follow her on Twitter @AlysaGuffeyNews.
This article originally appeared on South Bend Tribune: Indiana festivals: South Bend hosts first-ever 'Mural Mania'
