Atlanta muralist brings smarts to street art class

DUNWOODY, Ga. — Areas of sidewalk at the Spruill Center for the Arts are now covered in chalk murals, created by a class of around a dozen who participated in a street art course recently.

Since mid-April, Brave Nu Ventures’ Rachel Griner and a team of local street art experts and creatives have led workshops on the history and varied meanings behind the medium that covers Atlanta. Students also made their way around the city’s Castleberry Hills neighborhood and South Downtown to get a first-hand look at the work — big, often colorful and thought-provoking.

Separated into two groups, students brought their drafted designs in the course’s last class May 20. Using a homemade projector, one group made stencils to illustrate a theme based on the concept of enlightenment. The second group, which received passerby participants, chalked a waterway with the slogan, “We’re all drops in the river.”

Changed perspective

In the last class, students also spent time reflecting on what they had learned throughout their time examining street art, Griner said. One student admitted to having a preconceived notion of graffiti as a “blight” on city surfaces but now sees it as an “entire culture.”

Griner, who developed the course curriculum over a year, said many students foresaw driving through the city, seeing a blank wall, and asking themselves: “Why isn’t there graffiti on it?”

While Griner was familiar with street art, she too learned something new — the transcendent and interrelated quality of art communities, how the barriers between street art, graffiti and public art are more porous.

“There was just a hunger and veracity for learning and for connecting with people,” Griner said regarding the students and the instructors. “We just felt connected by our curiosity and our sense of community and our commitment to art as a form of self-expression.”

Because of its success, Griner said “Exploring Street Art in Atlanta” will be a standard course offered at the Spruill Center every spring and fall.

 

Students create chalk murals at the Spruill Center for the Arts in the last class of a course on street art. Because of its success, “Exploring Street Art in Atlanta” will be be offered every spring and fall at the Spruill Center.

SPRUILL CENTER FOR THE ARTS/PROVIDED

Uplifting communities

Aysha Pennerman, a professional muralist, guided students as they etched their images on concrete.

The week before, she led an artist studio and introduced students to her experiences with community-based murals. Pennerman also led discussion on how street art can be used to improve public safety, or tactical urbanism. She once created a “tactical walkway” mural in the Adams Park neighborhood in Atlanta because there weren’t any sidewalks.

Pennerman said public art can be transformative and inspirational, that it can become a source of pride for areas that are disinvested or neglected.

“It has the opportunity to bring voices to the forefront,” she said.

Pennerman often creates murals in low-income communities, at schools, and involves others in the process. From a concept developed over three sessions with students at Harper-Archer Elementary School, Pennerman and students filled in her paint-numbers design that harkened back to the school’s mascot — the Trailblazers.

“I thought of a light … they will be the ones that will continue to spread light wherever they go and make an impact,” Pennerman said. “I wanted to continue to speak that into them and into the community, that they are all lights. They can all make a difference in the world.”

Chairman's Circle