Return of the Davis Mural Team

PHOTO: Mural

By Marion Delarue

BlueDevilHUB.com Staff–

This school year has seen the comeback of the Davis Mural Team. The group was formed in 2012 by John Natsoulas and William Maul to “bring murals into communities around the country,” Natsoulas said. 

“(John) came up to me and asked if I would be willing to participate in this idea he had. He was going to gather ten artists and have us participate on each other’s murals. So we’d have ten artists doing ten murals and all of us working together on it,” Maul said. 

“And he asked if I would do it. He said, ‘I think if I get you to join, you know, to do it. I can get the other artists to do it also.’ And I said, ‘Yeah’, And we got everyone he asked, (to) come on board.”

The team painted every mural but two in Davis. “One was of the old Davis Gateway by Terry Buckendorf (…) The other mural i located at the side of F and 2nd Street,” Natsoulas said in the book “Davis Mural Team – and the site specific-Art Renaissance”.

One of their long term projects, in association with the Davis Cultural Arts and Entertainment Committee and the Yolo County Supervisor Bureau, was the beautification of the cinema Davis holiday 6 parking garage murals. “Things have happened in that parking structure and people got hurt. And so we believe that through art you can really reach people,” Natsoulas said. 

One of its most prominent murals being a community mural that represents Davis specific events and artists such as the Oktoberfest, Picnic Day or the Whole Earth Festival. “So the big 180 foot mural that we did represents the culture of our community. It has the original Davis Art Center (and) all of the original art entities in town,” Natsoulas said.

The Davis Art Garage won a Grassroots Initiative Award of Merit from the American Planning Association of California for its uniqueness in that it gathered more than 200 local residents and artists. “I was lucky enough to go to the award ceremony, which was at the Disney Hotel, (with) 2500 people in the audience, and it was a great honor,” Natsoulas said.

However, the murals in the parking garage were not maintained by either the city or the Regal Theater who share ownership of the building. “I’ve cleaned it about ten times in the last five years. They’ve done nothing,” Natsoulas said.

So this year the Davis Mural Team is taking on the task of renovating the parking garage’s murals in addition to the murals they put together outside of it. The team worked to restore murals in the Regal Parking Garage, by repainting areas that were covered by graffiti.

Similarly to the 2012 team, this year’s Davis Mural Team relies on community and student participation. “We provide all the supplies and the artists and the community help us with the murals, and we do this all at no cost to anybody,” Natsoulas said.

Junior Kiera Carston was one of the students to participate on the project this year,“I learned that it’s fun to be a part of something that means a lot to other people, and to help out people when they need it,” she said.