Community Mural

Graffiti removal and traditional abatement strategies have already proven to ineffective and not cost efficient. The scandal in Burbank exposes how private abatement contractors have abused the system even further. A graffiti-removal worker was arrested for allegedly tagging various locations in Burbank and then fraudulently billing the city to remove the same tags, police said today. (Flickr) Enrique Medrano, 53, was arrested on Thursday and was booked on suspicion of vandalism, burglary, and forgery, Burbank police Sgt. Darin Ryburn said. “Medrano was employed by…

We just got a phone call from our partner Martin telling us that some of our murals were in Mister F.A.B.’s new video, “Generation Lost.” We had no idea that we had literally filmed almost half of the video in front of the Madre Maiz mural that we did on People’s Grocery earlier this year. For anyone who has been living under a rock for the past 15 years, Mister F.A.B. is a legend in Bay Area hip-hop. Notorious for…

CRP artists Riot 505, Release, Mike 360, Pancho and Desi W.O.M.E collaborated on a new piece entitled “Wake Up – Take Off Your Blinders” as part of November’s First Friday Art Explosion, a monthly artwalk and street festival which attracts tens of thousands of people to downtown Oakland every month. Riot 505 provided the design for the piece, based on a graphic concept that he was working on. The new work focuses on the awakening of the consciousness through awareness and…

Toronto has begun its implementation of a committee approval process to protect legal works done with Spray Paint. While many will see this is as a positive pro-active measure, it is inherently flawed for several reasons. First, and most important, the artwork was ALREADY LEGAL!! Why does the government need to legalize a mural that was already done with the owner’s consent and paid for by the same owner? Large-scale pieces of work that the artists worked on for hours…

This project and programs like it show us some of the real power of murals to connect communities. This is a particularly exciting project because it is crossing a very literal border and connecting communities in the US and Mexico. This story also speaks to the work that muralists do to be muralists; the community engagement, the hours of making and maintaining contacts for projects, the struggles to stay consistently funded, and the need to address real powerful complex issues…

CRP is proud to be connected to The Point CDC in Hunts Point, the Bronx. The Point is home to the legendary aerosol muralists, TATS Cru as well as numerous programs that are working to build a healthy neighborhood in the midst of an industrial food desert. The Visions of a Healthy Community shares so much of CRP’s philosophy it was necessary to highlight the program on our blog. Several youth participated in the program, discussing what healthy communities look…