All posts tagged: Dustin Chambers

BSA Film Friday 08.16.13 – Living Walls Atlanta Edition

August 16, 2013 Artists

Our weekly focus on the moving image and art in the streets. And other oddities.

Now screening: The Videos from Living Walls 2013.

BSA Special Feature: The Videos from Living Walls 2013

Part of the team at Living Walls is dedicated to documenting in video what the experience is and to finding new engaging ways of telling stories. With a nice sized media team who take their work seriously and with a healthy sense of fun, LW2013 has been talking to a number of people – the artists, the organizers, the volunteers, the neighbors. This year this crackerjack team of talents are giving you a progressive account of the behind-the-scenes events at regular intervals so you can feel like you are experiencing it with them.

Hanging at the Goat Farm; A still from video by the Living Walls 2013 Media Team (© Living Walls)

At last nights block party in the Edgewood section the team also projected some their video pieces on a big screen during the night market to share the events with the community in a very inclusive celebratory way while bands played in front of the huge illuminated piece by Sten Lex. While ROTI completed his wall live in front of a gathered crowd in a parking lot on the main drag, other walls by artists like Gaia, Nanook, Nuezz, and JR were all receiving the star treatment up and down this developing strip for the steady stream of art fans and revelers paraded by.

At BSA Film Friday we’re happy to give a huge shout out the team who puts together this very impressive work and to salute them for their vision, creativity and collaboration. Together they are exploring and presenting new ways to capture and tell the story of Living Walls Atlanta.

The Living Walls 2013 Media Team:
Dustin Chambers
Brandon English
Wil Hughes
Albert Lebron
Mike Morgan
Justin Newton
Jason Travis

Here are the 4 sequential updates so far for Living Walls as well as a special video with Street Artist JR.

JR came in advance of this weeks events to install new pieces commemorating the 50th Anniversary of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.

Part I – Living Walls Conference 2013

Part II – Living Walls Conference 2013

Part III – Living Walls Conference 2013

Part IV – Living Walls Conference 2013

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Please note: All content including images and text are © BrooklynStreetArt.com, unless otherwise noted. We like sharing BSA content for non-commercial purposes as long as you credit the photographer(s) and BSA, include a link to the original article URL and do not remove the photographer’s name from the .jpg file. Otherwise, please refrain from re-posting. Thanks!

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Priceless Culture: Mexican Artist Neuzz in Atlanta For Living Walls 2012

June 11, 2012 Artists

Starting off the week we check in with Living Walls Atlanta for our fourth installment of 2012 and an inspirational installation by a Street Artist and painter from Mexico City named Neuzz.

Neuzz. Living Walls Atlanta 2012. (photo © Dustin Chambers)

NEUZZ

Text by Alexandra Parrish
Photos by Dustin Chambers and Wil Hughes
Video by Dustin Chambers and Wil Hughes, edited by Dustin Chambers

Like species, neighborhoods are named endangered. Places lose their value, their splendor and charm over time as shoddy development moves in. Sweet Auburn District, which was once a lively area decades ago, was recently named one of United States’ most endangered places.

The neighborhood that holds Sweet Auburn District, the Old Fourth Ward, has experienced a similar decline. Namely, Edgewood Ave, which is littered with empty buildings and Styrofoam trash. It’s easy to overlook the historic value of the district upon first glance, yet many have measured the significance of O4W in other ways.

Neuzz, aka Miguel Mejía, came to Atlanta to experience the city of grit that reminds him much of his own, Mexico City. The historical determination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. initially attracted Neuzz to Atlanta, where he would complete a wall located in King’s district. His four week stint allowed him to develop a richer understanding of the area; the social and economic congruence to his home city in Mexico inspired him to transform the “sad wall” into art through his rich, vibrant colors.

Neuzz. Living Walls Atlanta 2012. (photo © Wil Hughes)

His assistant, Keif Schliefer, guided him through the process of completing his largest mural as of yet. The subject matter and motif of the wall comes from his heritage; his style and methodology is derived from his modern understanding. The composition and coloring was entirely influenced by the community – any kind of trash he found, he used as a stencil. His sketch likened a traditional costume-dance to celebrate rain and agriculture (the very rain that prevented work for five days) and incorporated the bees he handled at Keif’s house. Aside from being an artist, architect, civil rights activist and a former firefighter, Keif is also Living Walls Projects’ Chief Engineer and Logistics Director.

Some people grid out their walls while others project, but Neuzz simply laid out a solid base. His work is very symmetrical, yet he entirely relies on his paintbrush and his own hands to serve as his unit of measurement. While he went back and forth on the lift often to ensure proportions, the reward was sweeter in the end – Keif and Miguel developed new techniques, new approaches, that he will take with himself beyond Atlanta.

Neuzz. Living Walls Atlanta 2012. (photo © Dustin Chambers)

While Neuzz incorporated elements into his wall, the community became stakeholders in the mural. Keif would invite people up onto the lift, where they’d take photos of the wall, the skyline, themselves. While working he’d talk to people, entertain them, learn their stories. Everyone had his or her own experience. Neuzz has the invaluable knack of building relationships despite cultural differences.

One woman told me as she walked by that the wall offered the area “priceless culture.” As artists like Neuzz continue to donate their time enhancing this endangered area, revitalization will take a new meaning.

Neuzz. Living Walls Atlanta 2012. (photo © Wil Hughes)

Neuzz. Living Walls Atlanta 2012. (photo © Dustin Chambers)

Neuzz. Living Walls Atlanta 2012. (photo © Wil Hughes)

Neuzz. Living Walls Atlanta 2012. (photo © Dustin Chambers)

Neuzz. Living Walls Atlanta 2012. (photo © Wil Hughes)

To learn more about Living Walls Altanta: The City Speaks and to make a donation to help this year’s conference click here. BSA thanks you for supporting this good work.

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Interesni Kazki at Living Walls Atlanta

May 3, 2012 Artists, Atlanta, Features, On the Street, Street Art Festival

For our third installment in our series for Living Walls Atlanta: The City Speaks 2012 we are proud to present the Ukranian team of AEC and WAONE most commonly known as Interesni Kazki. The guys as usual are praised for their excellent craftsmanship and work ethic and, may we add, discipline. It must be hard to stay out of the bars when your spot is in the night-time entertainment district but then again maybe Interesni Kazki are of the abstemious sort. Whatever the case, their work and talent is garnering more attention daily in the Street Art world and beyond.

Interesni Kazki

Text by Alexandra Parrish
Photos by Dustin Chambers
Video by Dustin Chambers

Our process with artists is, in essence, quite simple – we house and feed the artists, purchase their paint and materials, and ensure mural completion by offering assistants and steady schedules. In reality, this simple process is foiled by secondary factors, namely weather and compelling distractions. However, when Interesni Kazki arrived in Atlanta, everything fell perfectly into place. They came here to paint with an impeccable work ethic.

Interesni Kazki (photo © Dustin Chambers)

AEC and WAONE of Interesni Kazki finished their large mural situated in the bar-heavy neighborhood of East Atlanta Village in only five days. They woke up early, ate a modest meal and set off to their wall. From dawn to dusk they meticulously incorporated every finishing touch to their work.

The completed mural epitomizes their signature style, integrating science fiction and religion with obvious Escher influences. The meaning, however, is left for interpretation. AEC noted early on that their work personifies a multitude of meanings. Four days into the process, Monica and I came up with an intoxicated interpretation after a bar crawl – the Shepard (who remarkably looks like Atlanta’s own Evereman) opens Pandora’s box which harvests the “Big Bang,” creating the solar system and human kind. Interesni Kazki’s work truly incites a heap of explanations.

The Ukranian duo plans to return to Atlanta later in the year to complete a much larger mural in the heart of downtown, hopefully to cook the Living Walls team more borscht.

Neuzz, fellow Wynwood Walls artist, and Evereman are next to follow.

To learn more about Living Walls Altanta: The City Speaks and to make a donation to help this year’s conference click here. BSA thanks you for supporting this good work.

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La Pandilla and Trek Matthews in Cabbagetown for Living Walls Atlanta

April 2, 2012 Artists, Atlanta, Events, On the Street, Street Art Festival

Let’s start off the week with our 2nd installment of Living Walls in Atlanta for 2012, a splendid overview of Cabbagetown and the installation by three of this years participants creating new murals over a nearly two week stretch, just finished and fresh for you.

La Pandilla and Trek Matthews

Text by Alexandra Parrish
Photos by Dustin Chambers
Video by Albert Lebron

Before I engage you with an individual take of La Pandilla and Trek Matthew’s twelve-day long mural production, I must foray into a brief history lesson; Cabbagetown is a tight-knit neighborhood in Atlanta that is rich with folklore and idiosyncrasies. Adjacent to the Fulton Bag and Cotton Mills, the neighborhood began as a mill town complete with shotgun-style houses built by Jacob Elsas, the factory owner. After recruiting poor whites from the Georgia Appalachian region to work in his factory, Elsas offered free housing to compromise for insignificant wages and working conditions. Legend has it that the neighborhood assumed the moniker “Cabbagetown” after a truck-load of cabbages spilled across the neighborhood; many recount a brutal smell of cabbages that could be assumed to have followed the accident or maybe it just permeated from their kitchens.

After an extensive effort towards revitalization (some would say gentrification), Cabbagetown reigns as a treasured locality in Atlanta. Although Krog Tunnel features an ever-changing display of graffiti and street art, the CSX walls that enclose the neighborhood have remained four shades of grey. Surprisingly, when Living Walls contacted the Cabbagetown Neighborhood Association to allow La Pandilla, from Puerto Rico and Trek Matthews from Atlanta to paint two murals, they more than accommodated.

As soon as La Pandilla and Trek Matthews began on their wall, joggers, walkers and rubberneckers routinely stopped to chat and observe. Throughout production, community support yielded endless tokens of gratitude – fresh baked bread, beer runs, grilled cheese sandwiches, salvaged fresh-till packaged meals, oral histories and loud music. Even the infamous rogue buffer that verbally threatened La Pandilla (yes, Cabbagetown is home to it’s very own vigilante, occasionally violent buffer) grew to appreciate the finely detailed work that replaced decades of juvenile tags.

The truth is, Alexis Diaz and Juan Fernandez of La Pandilla are insane. Their method of using Chinese ink to translate immensely detailed drawings into full-scale murals costs a lot of time. Although they’d camp out at their wall from sunrise to sunset each day, they failed to finish on time. Hardly defeated, La Pandilla opted to stay an extra day and completed their 25-foot mural in their last hours.

Three blocks down, Trek Matthews, an emerging artist from Atlanta, began on his first public wall. His work incorporates a mash of Aztec patterns and Native American designs, which turns out nicely on the grey concrete. Despite the daunting height of his wall, Trek toughed it out on a scrappy extension ladder.

In a perfect world Living Walls would serve as proverbial residents of Cabbagetown forever. I could tell Juan felt the same way as he waved saying “bye y’all.

La Pandilla and Trek Matthews by Albert Lebron (VIDEO)

To learn more about Living Walls Altanta: The City Speaks and to make a donation to help this year’s conference click here. BSA thanks you for supporting this good work.

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