The Ann Arbor post tagged (left), in mid-rescue (center), transformed (right).
Some people grew tired of looking at the graffiti outside a former restaurant. Rather than complain, they painted a fish.
A fish mural, to be exact.
The mural went up outside the former home of the Pretzel Bell restaurant on E. Liberty Street in downtown Ann Arbor, Michigan, this week. A citizen had reported some graffiti there on that city’s SeeClickFix problem-solving web platform, and posted a picture of it. Because it was private property, the city didn’t just come and clean it up. But some citizens, with the assistance of police officer Sgt. Thomas Hickey, took out their brushes and put up the mural, turning an eyesore into an attraction.
Paul Bass Photos
SeeClickFix Radio co-hosts Ben Berkowitz and Caroline Smith.
That approach to graffiti emerged in a discussion on the latest episode of WNHH’s “SeeClickFix Radio” program.
David Wilborn, who works for the city of Ann Arbor, said graffiti is a common complaint on the local SeeClickFix platform. “We love to have the community step up and help out” with addressing it, especially on private property, he said. A group in Ann Arbor called Tagging Solutions has taken up the call and conducted graffiti-into-mural “interventions.”
Chris Randall Photo
The New Haven mural under I-91.
New Haven has wrestled with similar challenges. SeeClickFix founder and radio co-host Ben Berkowitz spoke on the program about how he and his neighbors organized an “Inside/Out” photo-art exhibit under two I‑91 underpasses, only to see taggers deface it (leading to a lively, extended debate in the New Haven Independent over what constitutes graffiti and who gets to decide). Berkowitz said organizers learned from the experience. They subsequently revisited one of the underpasses and organized a graffiti art-style mural that remains intact today. He spoke of how a graffiti-artist-led effort in the Edgewood Park skate area has also endured.
The Ann Arbor “Tagging Solutions” group cautions on its website that, based on its experience, “a mural that too closely resembles graffiti invites ‘embellishment’ and can trigger more graffiti and tagging events.”
The episode of SeeClickFix radio also featured a discussion with New Havener (and active SeeClickFix poster) Nadine Herring about efforts to combat other forms of blight along Whalley Avenue and on Goffe Street — including the need, as in Ann Arbor, to combine citizen activism and volunteerism with government help. Herring was involved in a public-art effort to claim spaces along Whalley called the “Joke Project.” Artists Joanne Connon and Carolanne Patterson created the installation, featuring 22 portraits of everyday people alongside jokes wheat-pasted on sidewalk concrete stanchions, as part of last October’s City Wide Open Studios. It has made a lot of people chuckle for months now; rather than taggers, the elements have proved a problem, as some of the paper used in the installation has deteriorated.
Click on or download the above audio file to listen to the entire episode.
This episode of “Dateline New Haven” was made possible in part through support from Yale-New Haven Hospital.
Under 91 looks amazing. The difference from pre-mural days to now is like the difference between night and day. If only the city could streamline such projects. There are hundreds of willing artists and hundreds of drab, depressing, concrete walls. Let's paint the town!