Wide Open Walls (Sacramento Mural Festival) is an annual

street art Street art is visual art created in public locations for public visibility. It has been associated with the terms "independent art", "post-graffiti", "neo-graffiti" and guerrilla art. Street art has evolved from the early forms of defiant graff ...

event held in

Sacramento ) , image_map = Sacramento County California Incorporated and Unincorporated areas Sacramento Highlighted.svg , mapsize = 250x200px , map_caption = Location within Sacramento ...

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

. The Friends of the Sacramento Metropolitan Arts Commission conceived of the event as a fundraiser for public arts education and developed it with constituents from the civic, business, education, and arts sectors to build on the city's cultural economy. Founders established the

interactive art Interactive art is a form of art that involves the spectator in a way that allows the art to achieve its purpose. Some interactive art installations achieve this by letting the observer walk through, over or around them; others ask the artist ...

event to engage both Sacramento residents and visitors to the

state capital Below is an index of pages containing lists of capital cities. National capitals *List of national capitals *List of national capitals by latitude *List of national capitals by population *List of national capitals by area *List of capital citie ...

. The festival sponsors local, national, and international artists who gather for ten days in late August to produce monumental work on structures throughout the metropolitan area. After the success of its inaugural year, the festival inspired both state institutions and private building owners to donate walls for enduring works of

public art Public art is art in any Media (arts), media whose form, function and meaning are created for the general public through a public process. It is a specific art genre with its own professional and critical discourse. Public art is visually and phy ...

Artists

Some notable artists who have participated in Wide Open Walls include:

Add Fuel Add Fuel is Portuguese visual artist and illustrator Diogo Machado (born 1980). With a degree in Graphic Design from Lisbon's IADE – Institute of Visual Arts, Design and Marketing, he spent a few years working in design studios in Portugal, foll ...

, Apexer,

Camille Rose Garcia Camille Rose Garcia (born November 18, 1970) is a California-based lowbrow/pop surrealism artist. She produces paintings in a gothic, "creepy" cartoon style. She cites as influences Walt Disney and Philip K. Dick. Early life and education Garc ...

, Christina Angelina (aka Starfighter), Few and Far Women (collective), Herakut,

John Pugh John David Pugh (born 28 June 1948, Liverpool) is a Liberal Democrat politician in the United Kingdom. He was the Member of Parliament for Southport from 2001 to 2017. He stood down at the 2017 snap election. In November 2017, he was elected t ...

, John Horton, Jorit Agoch, Maren Conrad, Okuda,

Phlegm Phlegm (; , ''phlégma'', "inflammation", "humour caused by heat") is mucus produced by the respiratory system, excluding that produced by the nasal passages. It often refers to respiratory mucus expelled by coughing, otherwise known as sputum ...

, Raphael Delgado,

Shepard Fairey Frank Shepard Fairey (born February 15, 1970) is an American contemporary artist, activist and founder of OBEY Clothing who emerged from the skateboarding scene. In 1989 he designed the " Andre the Giant Has a Posse" (...OBEY...) sticker cam ...

, Shamisa Hassani,

Sonya Fe Sonya Fe (born 1952) is an American painter. Personal life Fe is one of eight children born to Jewish-American mother Ruth Goldfein and father Joseph Williams who was Narragansett and Mexican-American. Her parents raised their eight children ...

, Stan Padilla, and

Tavar Zawacki Tavar Zawacki formerly known as 'ABOVE' (born 1981) is an American abstract artist living and working in Lisbon, Portugal. For twenty years (1996–2016) Tavar Zawacki created and signed all of his artworks with his street artist pseudonym, ' ...

History

2016

The inaugural Sacramento Mural Festival in 2016 hosted a dozen artists who painted city walls over an eight-day period in August. The festival was primarily held on the city

grid Grid, The Grid, or GRID may refer to: Common usage * Cattle grid or stock grid, a type of obstacle is used to prevent livestock from crossing the road * Grid reference, used to define a location on a map Arts, entertainment, and media * News g ...

in Midtown where artists could be easily viewed painting large scale murals by pedestrians and cyclists. The festival included tours, presentations, pop-up events, and a final rooftop party.

2017

The 2017 Sacramento Mural Festival was renamed Wide Open Walls (WOW) by festival organizers. Local, national, and international

mural A mural is any piece of graphic artwork that is painted or applied directly to a wall, ceiling or other permanent substrate. Mural techniques include fresco, mosaic, graffiti and marouflage. Word mural in art The word ''mural'' is a Spani ...

, street, and

graffiti Graffiti (plural; singular ''graffiti'' or ''graffito'', the latter rarely used except in archeology) is art that is written, painted or drawn on a wall or other surface, usually without permission and within public view. Graffiti ranges from s ...

artists were hired to paint more than thirty murals on city walls throughout the metropolitan area.

2018

In 2018 Wide Open Walls received some national attention as the city hosted the opening of Sacramento native

Greta Gerwig Greta Celeste Gerwig (; born August 4, 1983) is an American actress, screenwriter, and director. She first garnered attention after working on and appearing in several mumblecore films. Between 2006 and 2009, she appeared in a number of films b ...

's film ''Lady Bird'' which had been filmed in the city. Prior to the opening of the festival film was commemorated with a mural painted by local artist Maren Conrad. Festival attendees were also able tow view the creation of

's fifteen story mural of

Johnny Cash John R. Cash (born J. R. Cash; February 26, 1932 – September 12, 2003) was an American country singer-songwriter. Much of Cash's music contained themes of sorrow, moral tribulation, and redemption, especially in the later stages of his ca ...

standing in front of

Folsom Prison Folsom State Prison (FSP) is a California State Prison in Folsom, California, U.S., approximately northeast of the state capital of Sacramento, California, Sacramento. It is one of 34 adult institutions operated by the California Department of ...

. Fairey conceived the image as part of his “American Civics Project” series and painted the mural in "hopes the artwork will prompt discussion of mass incarceration and the for-profit prison industry in America." Festival organizers continued to promote local artists who shared the diverse perspectives, philosophies, experiences, and heritage that make up the city and state. Of note is the work of Stan Padilla, a member of the

Royal Chicano Air Force The Royal Chicano Air Force (RCAF) is a Sacramento, California-based art collective, founded in 1970 by Ricardo Favela, José Montoya and Esteban Villa. It was one of the "most important collective artist groups" in the Chicano art movement in C ...

, honoring the collective with a mural on the

Golden 1 Center Golden 1 Center is an indoor arena, located in downtown Sacramento, California, United States. It sits partially on the site of the former Downtown Plaza shopping center. The publicly owned arena is part of a business and entertainment district ...

and

California State University, Sacramento California State University, Sacramento (CSUS, Sacramento State, or informally Sac State) is a public university in Sacramento, California. Founded in 1947 as Sacramento State College, it is the eleventh oldest school in the 23-campus California ...

which donated a wall to a collaborative work completed by its alumni: SV Williams, Phillip Altstatt, John Horton, Raphael Delgado, Molly Devlin, Micah Crandall-Bear, Lopan and Ernie Fresh, Norm Ayles, Ursula X. Young, and Jose Di Gregorio. In 2018 the festival was recognized by the Arts & Business Council of the Sacramento Region and won the Sacramento Region Innovation of the Year Award.

2019

The 2019 festival continued to showcase diverse perspectives in street art expanding into Sacramento communities traditionally underserved by its

economy An economy is an area of the production, distribution and trade, as well as consumption of goods and services. In general, it is defined as a social domain that emphasize the practices, discourses, and material expressions associated with the ...

. California natives Raphael Delgado and Kirileigh Jones created colorful floral works to large city walls, while British artist (and sometime Sacramento resident) David Puck painted a series of murals concerned with

mental health awareness Mental health encompasses emotional, psychological, and social well-being, influencing cognition, perception, and behavior. It likewise determines how an individual handles stress, interpersonal relationships, and decision-making. Mental heal ...

. Los Angeles artist Eliseo Art Silva, who immigrated to California from the Philippines, contributed a mural depicting the Filipino migration to a wall at California State University, Sacramento, which also provided walls for artists Hoxxoh and Jilian Evelyn.

2020

A scaled down version of the festival took place in September 2020 and featured works by Sacramento and Bay Area artists.

Criticism

After the 2017 festival some local residents raised concerns that an investment in public art within was signaling the

gentrification Gentrification is the process of changing the character of a neighborhood through the influx of more Wealth, affluent residents and businesses. It is a common and controversial topic in urban politics and urban planning, planning. Gentrification ...

of the city to appeal to the

creative class The creative class is the posit of American urban studies theorist Richard Florida for an ostensible socioeconomic class. Florida, a professor and head of the Martin Prosperity Institute at the Rotman School of Management at the University of To ...

, potentially impacting the cost of living in low-income neighborhoods that are often populated with Brown and Black people. However, local muralist and WOW contributor Aik Brown expresses his motivation for adding his art on the walls of the community he grew up in, "I feel that my work provides a sense of peace, love, and happiness while also dealing with and discussing societal issues around race, politics, violence by the police, and living in America while Black. I am creating a new body of work that will focus on these issues...through family, nature, and spirituality."

References

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