She quit her high-paying 9-5 job for art. Now she's Indianapolis' most sought muralist

In a drab gray warehouse next to a drab gray wall on the southwest side Koda Witsken arms are moving furiously.

She shakes a spray paint can and instantly applies a blast of purple to the outlined sketch of a race car tire. Witsken puts down the purple and picks up the orange from a drop cloth with 26 cans bunched together.

As Witsken paints, forklifts and cherry pickers in the supersized Target Distribution Center beep as they back up and grind as they rise. Working alone for six straight hours, Witsken is oblivious to the background cacophony. With her respirator mask, goggles and leggings, the 32-year-old Fortville resident is an oversized worker ant hurriedly picking from a hill of colorful crumbs.

Twenty years ago, Witsken might have been arrested for vandalism for the exact same activity. But attitudes toward her specialty — street art — have shifted dramatically since then.

Instead of worrying about cops showing up at her door with a warrant, city officials and business owners now knock politely with commissions of thousands of dollars.

“I’ve got two weeks to finish this,” Witsken says of the 500-square-foot mural, then it’s off to the next job. “I’m booked to the end of the year.”

Like Target, communities across Central Indiana are eager to replace blah with blazing. Once derided as graffiti, street art and large public murals are now embraced as community unifiers and beautifiers.

That means vivid, eye-catching mosaics of cultural and geographic touchstones. If they’re lucky, a piece can provide an Instagram-ready backdrop that brings social media attention.

“They are instantly gratifying and transformative,” said Julie Muney Moore, director of public art for the Indy Arts Council. “They are story-telling that encourage community engagement.”

And thanks to a combination of dissatisfaction in her previous professional life, fortuitous timing and an innate business savvy, Witsken, 30, is in the foreground of that picture.

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The 5-year itch

Five years ago, Witsken was making six figures in a sales job in Los Angeles but felt empty and directionless.

“I loved my job, my boss, every day was sunny,” Witsken said. “And every day I went home and cried.”

Witsken’s grandfather was a cartoonist and she and her twin brother gravitated to arts when they were children. She was a standout arts student at Hamilton Southeastern High, but when she attended Duke and Purdue universities she majored in business and history, with an art minor. After college, she was unsure about what she wanted to do as a career. Though she hoped art would be part of it, she couldn’t see how to make a living at it.

“I constantly made ... plans to test art as a business but I didn’t feel I had the knowledge or capital at the time to make it a viable path,” she said.

She took the first job she could in the hotel industry, working from office cubicles in Boston and Los Angeles. After five years, the itch for art was too much.

She packed up her belongings and returned to Hamilton County in 2018, gambling that she could not only get back into painting and drawing but make a decent living at it.

“There is never a perfect time to start so you just jump in,” Witsken said.

Her instincts were right.

Making connections

Witsken took a job at the Nickel Plate Arts in Noblesville as a liaison to the business community, where she developed contacts in the corporate and arts communities. But she lacked a portfolio, so she painted in her free time and started taking any jobs that came along.

“I was painting people’s bedrooms and to keep money coming I was teaching yoga,” Witsken said. Pianos, cars, shoes, “you name it,” she’d paint it, Witsken said.

Her first major mural was an underpass for the town of Cumberland, a $50,000 project. The 120-foot-long painting on the Buck Creek Trail celebrates plants and animals and encourages use of the trail.

“It’s the largest public arts piece in Hancock County,” said Cumberland Town Manager Ron Lipps. “People bring it up all the time. They love art.”

Koda Witsken’s portfolio fills up fast

Witsken started a company, Hue Murals, and has done more than 70 murals around the country since in Chicago, Wyoming, Texas and Wisconsin, among other locations. Most of her work can be found in the Indianapolis area —  at Gainbridge Fieldhouse for the Pacers and the Colts at Lucas Oil Stadium; at Eli Lilly and the Children’s Museum; the Bottleworks Hotel garage and Slapfish restaurant.

The city of Fishers hired her to do a painting of jazz great Wes Montgomery and she painted a mural at the Yard in the Fishers District. Witsken also has murals at Rise and Roll Bakery and Harley Davidson in Fishers and Jiffy Lube in Carmel.

“When you can take a concrete wall and create art we believe it inspires creativity and adds vibrancy,” said Ashley Elrod, a spokeswoman for Fishers, which has sanctioned several murals beside Witsken’s.

This summer Witsken will do a $50,000 mural at Alderman Automotive on the side of its wall facing State Road 37 in Fishers.

Owner Travis Alderman said the 20-by-58-foot mural on a new service center will feature elements that highlight Fishers’ standing as a striving, entrepreneurial city. A city grant will pay for half of the project.

“I think it will be a neat piece of art for the city and am happy to contribute,” Alderman said.

Witsken, he said, impressed him immediately.

“I really liked her style and vibe and the work she’s done,” he said. ”She is incredibly bubbly and one of the most professional, prompt and thorough people I’ve dealt with.”

Business still growing

The work can be grueling; the typical mural is 20-by-20 feet and takes about a week and a half to complete. Witsken bends, squats, reaches and climbs ladders all day. She works in the hot sun and dank tunnels, with bottles of sunscreen and allergy medicine close at hand.

Occasionally she’ll wear a back brace, gets hand and foot massages and needs to be careful the respirator is working. She’s got sunscreen and raincoats.

Witsken’s high school art teacher attributed part of her success to her personality.

“She is charismatic and not afraid to put herself out there,” Angela Fritz said.

Witsken’s work has always been “intensely colorful," and she is “not interested in hiding her stroke marks.”

“She’s not trying to make a photograph,” she said.

Witsken’s company is expanding quickly. She’s opening a studio in Brooklyn, fresh off a marriage this year to her New Yorker husband, where she will sell canvas paintings. She's working on a mural there for the YWCA.

Muney Moore, of Indy Arts Council, said Witsken has developed a niche perfect for her.

“She is highly in demand and deservedly so,” she said. “Her work is exactly what they are looking for, bright, attractive, clear vivid. People love bright colors. “

Witsken and other muralists are smart to ride the street art trend, Muney Moore said.

“They have learned that if you want to make money this is work that will always be there,” she said.

Call IndyStar reporter John Tuohy at (317) 444-6418. Follow on Twitter andFacebook.

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Indy art: She quit high-paying job. Now she's most sought muralist