Downtown Trenton gains 8 new murals during Art Festival

 

By SUE SUCHYTA

Sunday Times Newspapers

TRENTON – Artists created eight new vibrant, colorful murals downtown the first two weekends of September, along with two new outdoor sculptures along West Jefferson Avenue during the Trenton Art Festival.

In addition, artists painted live on more traditionally sized canvases in front of storefronts, interacting with festival attendees.

The newly installed silver-colored metal and blue glass sculptures by artist Tim Southward are at the southwest and northeast corners of the intersection of West Jefferson Avenue and St. Joseph Street.

The eight new murals display the works of: FEL3000FT at the Downtown Beauty Bar; Michael Polakowski at The Framery and Gallery; Michelle Tanguay at All About Grace boutique; Alexa Daluz at Promenade Artisan Foods; Rick Malt at Truago Restaurant; Louise Jones, also known as Ouizi, at the Trenton School of Dance; Kelly Golden at Le Lieu event venue; and Beau Stanton at the Rivertown Tavern.

Artist Gabi Barren, who was painting in front of Love You Bunches and Bunches florist shop, said she focuses on florals and portraits, and was enjoying talking with festival attendees.

“This is the first time I’ve actually painted live,” she said. “I thought it would help bring people into the store, and they set up a tent for me. Everybody here has been so nice.”

Artist Nicole Camilleri, who was doing intentional art in front of The Framery and Gallery, said she was asking people for three words that were important in their lives, which she then incorporated, along with their names, into a stylized tree drawing.

She said she also used the two most frequently given words, “love” and “kindness,” and created painting around the words.

Camilleri said the bright colors in her work often elicit positive responses from festival attendees.

“They love my colors, and I need color,” she said. “I’m in love with color, especially in Michigan during the winter.

“It’s dark and gloomy a lot of the time, so I just create with a tremendous amount of color because I need it and I feel color is very healing.”

Artist and Dearborn native Michael Polakowski, who painted a mural of the pedestrian bridge to Elizabeth Park on the north side of The Framery and Gallery, said he splits his time between murals and gallery work.

He said the bridge is a historical and recognizable part of Trenton, and he has gotten positive reactions from festival attendees.

“It’s been so amazing seeing everyone just like really happy to see things going on with the city, and everyone’s really happy that these are staying and are now a part of the city,” Polakowski said. “It’s very positive.”

He said he’s heard stories about how popular a site the bridge is for wedding photos.

“What I took from the stories is if you’re from Trenton, you need to get that photo on the bridge,” Polakowski said. “A lot of people connect to it.”

The mural artist known as FEL3000FT, who wears a mask and stopped showing his face to the press in 2012, created a mural  on the north wall of the Downtown Beauty Bar.

He said the mask is a self-soothing mechanism and helps him deal with his anxiety.

FEL3000FT said he does indoor and outdoor murals at businesses and residences, as well as gallery shows, including one during the past year at River’s Edge Gallery in Wyandotte.

He said he’s been pursuing art since he was 10 years old, and he is one of the first spray paint artists in Detroit.

“Since then, my work has taken me all over the world,” FEL3000FT said. “I’ve done some stuff that’s pretty small, but I think the things that I am most noted for in Detroit are I did all of the work in the stadium for the Lions, so, if you are walking down the tunnel, or see the Lions walking out the tunnel going out into the field before they play football, all of my artwork is all over.”

He said he’s also done murals on 10 walls inside the stadium.

FEL3000FT said the Trenton mural on the Downtown Beauty Bar reflects the duck hunting pleasure that the one of the past owners of the building enjoyed, based on feedback from his family.

“So, this was an homage to some of the elders of the family,” he said. “I think it’s a lovely thing to do, and a great idea to pay homage to those who came before us.”

FEL3000FT said all of the murals on Jefferson Avenue have something in them that connect to the Trenton community.

“It’s a blessing for us to be in Trenton and to add our art work to this community,” he said. “There are these bits and pieces, like indigenous flowers, and whatever we are using is a nod to the city, which I think is a really great thing to do, because it creates ownership and identifies really close with the community.”

Artist Nikki Paffi, who enjoys painting fruit, was encouraging passersby, whether children or adults, to add a few acrylic paint brushstrokes to the large multi-colored pear, with the shape masked by painter’s tape on her canvas.

“I kind of like the idea of the crazier the better, and then at some point I’ll peel it away,” she said. “It will look like a crazy graffitied pear maybe.”

Paffi said this was the first time she had done a live paint.

“Mostly I get the kids – kids just want to grab a brush and paint,” she said. “The adults are always like ‘Wait – I don’t know!’ and I’m like, “Throw some paint on it!’”

 

Artist Louise Jones, also known as Ouizi, who painted a mural with local wild flowers on the south wall of the Trenton School of Dance, said that while she does enjoy painting, it’s hard, exhausting work.

“I enjoy myself after the fact,” she said. “It’s not like I’m having fun necessarily; it’s very labor-intensive and I get very tired.”

Jones said that, as an artist, she needs to concentrate on the flow of work, and festival attendees, while well-meaning, tend to interrupt one’s focus.

“As an artist, I need to have my focus, but I’m also a public artist, so people feel like I’m here for their entertainment sometimes, so that can be tough, and sometimes I have a sign that says ‘please do not disturb – artist at work,’” she said.

Artist Beau Stanton of Brooklyn, N.Y., who painted his mural on the south wall of the Rivertown Tavern, said it memorializes the first ship built in Trenton, in 1846 or 1847, the schooner Alvin Clark. 

“I wanted to create an image both of the ship but also of flowing water, time and some elements of oak branches,” he said. “This particular ship is built of white oak, but it also played a big part in the lumber trade in the Great Lakes, and it actually sunk transporting illegal lumber to Chicago.”

 

Stanton said that in the 1960s, salvage divers found the wreck, raised and displayed it until it decomposed and fell apart.

“So, it kind of had a little comeback, but it is no longer here, so, I thought it would be interesting to talk about the shipping history and the maritime history and the interconnection between the natural world and the human-made world, between the branches in the water and the ship,” he said. 

Although he’s the only artist from out-of-state, he’s done work mural work in Detroit and Grosse Ile Township.

Stanton said a significant part of creating public art is you get an immediate response, be it good or bad.

“It was universally good on this one,” he said.

Stanton said it is satisfying when the mural is completed.

“The wall just kind of tells you when it’s done,” he said.