The Value of Murals by Eric Schmiel

With December's First Friday a couple days away, I'm checking out YouTube for videos of and about art here in Richmond.  Much like Winston-Salem, NC, where I last lived, there's not a lot.  But there's some.  Much of that has to do with Richmond's murals and annual street art festival.  There are dozens of murals here, maybe hundreds, and most seem to have been made 4-7 years ago.  These murals were the first thing that made me think, "Maybe I'll stick around here a while," when I landed here sort of accidentally (or was it FATE?) back in August.  The big and spread out art scenes and BMX scene (where I got my start in creative work in the 80's) here drew me in more.  But it started by seeing all kinds of murals while riding the buses around.

Looking through the online videos, I stumbled upon this friendly sounding guy dropping some cool thoughts about the whole concept of murals.  So I deemed it worth a share.  Check it out. 

RVA Street Art Festival 2013

Murals, murals everywhere.  That started to dawn on me after I landed here in Richmond in August. As I wandered around on buses, I just kept seeing murals, and that's the thing that first made me think I might want ot stay here a while.  Here's a cool time lapse video of the 2013 RVA Street Art Festival. 

For those of you outside this area, basically everyone who checks out my blog, "RVA" is the official, or at least publicly accepted unofficial abbreviation for Richmond, VA.  It's on big signs and stickers and car window stickers everywhere.

Winston-Salem Art District Murals #7

 These are more pics from the mural wall at the back of the Art Park on Liberty.  These were all painted in June 2018. 

Liberty Street/Winston-Salem Art District Murals #6

On a big wall on Liberty Street now, this is the second incarnation of the big tree, one of the first murals done by the old school Winston-Salem art scene posse.  The original was on the big barn-looking building on Trade Street, which is now remodeled into the Sweet Potato and Miss Ora's restaurants.  This version has much more roots (literally and figuratively) than leaves or than the original.  There are a whole bunch of things hidden in the mural to be found using the small key below it.

The mural on the side of The Chronicle building, before they moved to a new location.  The Chronicle is Winston-Salem's long time African-American newspaper.

Closer view of the protesters in the mural above.

This mural on Liberty was done in 2012, when I was driving a taxi here.  I can't tell you how many times I drove by and thought those silhouettes were actually women there painting the mural.  Since I remember them actually out there painting it, I guess that's part of the reason.

These are a couple more of the new murals on the art park mural wall.

Trade Street/Winston-Salem Art District Murals #1

 I'm not going to tell you exactly where these are, but they're adjacent to Trade Street in Winston-Salem's art district. 

 Green woman with pin-up girl ultra red lipstick.  After a few beers she'd probably look hot.

 This one and the one below remind me of that caterpillar dude in Alice in Wonderland.

"Boser" is the most prolific tagger in Winston-Salem.  And nearly the only one.  But it you take a spray can and cover the "B" with an "L," it'll read Loser. All photos by me (Steve Emig).