Through my work in the alley for the past year and a half, many people have come up to me to tell me their stories about the old mural under the overhang in Kirkland Ave, on the side of Downtown Sounds by Pleasant St. Many refer to it as the Pizza Punx mural (in reference to a scribbled crayon message written over the mural- one of very few cases of graffiti on the wall in a decade and a half!). This work was created collaboratively by a group of students led by Anne Hulley back in May of 1995. Fifteen years later, the mural has started to peel and fade, and the building owner is ready to give the wall a face lift. Though we will be painting over the old mural in order to expand the new one, I am confident the instrument wielding "Pizza Punx" it will live on forever in the legends of Kirkland Ave!
I feel a little funny about painting over something I've always had a certain fondness for in my heart, but in the same vein, I am excited to present an opportunity for the public to see contemporary new art in downtown Northampton. A lot of what I find fascinating about making art in the public sphere is the amount of embodied histories there are in the spaces we choose to focus on. The "Pizza Punx" have certainly added a lot of character to the Northampton urban landscape!
Be sure to check out the mural in real life- your computer screen just doesn't do justice for the awesomeness of the colors and design
