Long Beach has long been known for its rich artistic history. Bolstering this creative tradition is the annual Long Beach Walls, a chance for artists from different backgrounds to use the city’s streets as their canvas.
“A wall is just a wall, but most of us walk past walls every day without noticing them, but something magical happens when an artist transforms that wall into a mirror,” Jasper Wong, founder of WorldWide Walls, said during the welcome ceremony. “Public art also makes art accessible. It takes art out of galleries and museums and gives it back to the people. It becomes part of your daily life.”
Long Beach Walls, one of the city’s premier and recognizable events, is back for year 11 with mainly first-time participants.
On Wednesday, day three of the Long Beach Walls yearly event, they held a variety of events to engage the community and to show off the different murals across Long Beach.
A morning welcome ceremony was held on Wednesday for the community to learn about the initiative and meet different artists. A few hours later, Downtown Runners LB hosted a mural run event, with around 30 runners jogging to see the new murals, allowing them to hear each artist’s process and watch them work up close.
After the mural run ended, runners headed back to the Edison Theatre to watch a creative trampoline artist, Brian Floats, paint spontaneously as he jumped on a circular trampoline.
Before he began painting, the artist walked around, talking with the attendees, fist-bumping and shaking hands with them as he prepared to create his paintings.
Floats made three different paintings during the event — one that stood out was a live painting of a couple in the audience.
“Those two [the couple, Mark and Luna] were beautiful [and] they saw all three of my performances. They asked really thoughtful questions [and] they were really sincere,” he said. “It was basically … I’m not going to do this one as a performance … let’s just have a really cool me and them moment.”
This was the first time Floats had ever done a show in Long Beach, and it marked his first performance since taking a multi-year break to focus on his family.
“It’s also about the giving and the generosity towards the community and beautifying a city for everybody’s benefit and having it be open and public rather than private and exclusive,” he said about the Long Beach art scene. “It’s not for a marketer, a wealthy patron, but instead for a whole city, in a whole town, in a whole neighborhood. That’s a much different gift than somebody’s literal investment portfolio.”
Long Beach Walls will continue through June 13. Upcoming events include a Moonlight Mash Bike Mural Tour Thursday at 5 p.m., Floats’ final performance Thursday at 6 p.m. and the festival’s Summer Night Market Friday from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m.
To learn more about Long Beach Walls and to keep up with their events, check out their website and Instagram.
