The answer is to make it legal. Art, in any form, shouldn’t be a crime. When cities and property owners allow artists to learn from professional artists and practice techniques, a better-looking city often emerges. That’s the idea behind Tampa Walls Mural School and St. Pete Art Yard, two new art initiatives in Tampa Bay.
When it came to mural mentors in Tampa Bay, the late Matt Callahan was one of the best. “He was always there to help,” Tampa muralist Tony Krol told Creative Loafing Tampa Bay. “We don’t have an artist like that really anymore. Matt was the one. [His death] left this hole of knowledge sharing in the community because he knew how to do everything.”
Whether it was signs, lettering, or murals, Callahan got the job done. His legacy includes a giant octopus painted on the side of Classic Architectural with Angela Delaplane during the 2016 Shine mural festival, the Green Bench postcard mural, St. Tampasburg on the back-alley wall of The Lure. And now, Tampa Mural School.
In a fitting tribute to Callahan’s spirit, Callahan’s friends and family kickstarted Mural School in 2023.
Photo via cityofstpete/Flickr
The late Matt Callahan's Green Bench postcard mural.
“We have local professional graffiti writers come in and help teach some of those fundamentals,” Krol told CL. “And then we’re doing scale-up techniques [like] the doodle grid method.”
Krol flew Denver-based muralist and arts educator Thomas Evans, aka Detour, to Tampa for the first Mural School. Aspiring artists worldwide turn to Detour’s YouTube page (@iamdetour) for inspiration and tips. But in April 2023, Broward Elementary School students learned from Detour in person as he created a new mural with a message of “Hope” on their school campus. In the inaugural mural school, students watched Detour work as part of their art class instruction. Three months later, Mural School edition No. 2 rounded up 13 regional artists to teach five adult mural school participants, and three children ages 12 and up, the tools of the trade via a new mural at the Tampa Heights YMCA.
Krol gave the artists a theme and a color scheme. The idea was for the artists to find their inner voice or inner peace and then express that to the community in all six colors of the visible spectrum—red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and violet. The artists took the idea and ran with it.
“It features a local yoga teacher, and that yoga teacher is holding up a mask of Indie Reece,” says Krol. “There’s a lot of symbolism. That mural’s crazy in how it aligned. You can actually take a picture of Dan’s piece that has this glaring third eye beaming out of it. And if you take it at the right angle, there’s a Baptist Church steeple right over the third eye. It’s wild.”
This September, Mural School resumes with a more hands-on activity at Broward Elementary School. With regards to Mural School’s future, Krol says, “We’re building the program as we go.”
At the moment, he’s contemplating ways that Mural School could collaborate with Parks and Recreation in Tampa. “There’s a wall by the skate park at Perry Harvey Park…A lot of kids will take spray paint or brush paint or whatever’s out there and paint the wall because it’s right there. Then Parks & Rec will go yell, like, ‘You’re vandalizing this,’ then paint a beige square over it. Now this wall looks like a patchwork.”
What if instead, Parks & Rec partnered with an organization like Tampa Walls Mural School to bring legal graffiti walls to Tampa’s public parks?
Across the bay, the Vitale Bros. have their Overspray graffiti camp, while Celebrate St. Pete’s George Gower and Robert Roberts teamed up with Austin David, owner of the graffiti supply shop Artissin, to bring legal graffiti walls to St. Pete.
David was complaining to Roberts and Gower one day that there wasn’t a good place for aspiring muralists to practice without getting arrested. Just one wall near his home, and it wasn’t very big. “He was saying it would be wonderful to have a place where we could do that,” Roberts recounts.
“My partner, George Gower of Celebrate St. Pete, is a real estate developer. That’s how we know each other. We’ve done business together for the past 50 years. He has a piece of property in the Warehouse Arts District, and he said we could use that lot for an art yard. That’s how it all started.”
The lot in question is a 145 feet long and 45 feet wide lot on Emerson Avenue around 25th Street. David’s nonprofit, Life is Design Inc., is raising funds to bring 18 eight-by-eight-feet graffiti walls, bathrooms, electricity and lighting, and a small retail operation to the site.
“We’ll have a place for a food truck,” Roberts told CL. “The yard can also double as a place for events, vendor markets, live music, parties, and stuff like that. Aspiring artists will be able to come and paint on the walls, and the public can come by and watch.”
Austin David will manage the yard, which will have regular operating hours. “We’re going to start off just three days a week and expand as we go,” says Roberts, who’s planning to open Art Yard in October 2023. What will it look like when graffiti comes out of the shadows? Non-artists and aspiring artists will be able to observe folks painting murals.
“We want people to come out, or families, and maybe have a glass of wine or a beer, walk around and watch the artists work,” Roberts told CL. “I just think It’d be a wonderful situation. To walk out there on a Saturday or Sunday and see 10-15 artists working. I think I’d be a really energizing, exciting space.”
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