Muralists discuss familial bond of creating public art

Murals are popping up all over Long Beach this week as part of the city’s third annual Pow! Wow!, an international celebration of art featuring around 20 well known and up-and-coming artists from all over the world, including eight from Long Beach.
Since its founding in Hawaii in 2010, Pow! Wow! has hosted art events everywhere from Washington D.C. to Israel to Hong Kong.
Over three years ago, Julia Huang, the CEO and founder of advertising agency InterTrend, and Steve Goodling, the CEO and president of the Long Beach Convention & Visitors Bureau (CVB), recognized Long Beach’s artistic side and reached out to Pow! Wow! founder Jasper Wong and asked to be considered for a new Pow! Wow!
Huang and Goodling then worked together to bring Wong and his team to Long Beach to scope it out as a potential Pow! Wow! location.
“We flew here, checked out the city, fell in love with it and started painting it,” Wong said.
And Wong really did fall in love with it, Huang and Goodling posited.
“He actually considers Long Beach his second home,” Goodling said.
Huang added while laughing, “He loves Long Beach more than Hawaii, but don’t tell anyone!”
Pow! Wow! artists become a family of sorts, artist and team member Jeffrey “Jeff” Gress said.
“Everybody that has come and painted with us— we always consider them a part of the Pow! Wow! family,” Gress said. “A big part of that family is having the ability to work with others.”
He added that the building of the family is “natural” because the artists who love Pow! Wow! want to contribute again and again.
One such artist is TRAV MSK, a member of the graffiti collective The Seventh Letter who has participated in Pow! Wow! Hawaii and D.C.
“I’m not as active as I want to be,” TRAV said of being in Pow! Wow! events. “I need more coffee.”
His mural on the wall of a U-Haul truck-rental business at 1430 E. Anaheim St. will pay homage to old signage.
“What I try to focus on is a little bit of the narrative of brick-and-mortar businesses getting shut out of society,” TRAV said. “I like to pay homage to the older era so that it can create a reaction in people’s minds, whether they realize it or not.”
However, his painting plan is not set in stone, TRAV explained, because he tends to flow with how he feels and let his art change, a practice that he credits to his graffiti background.
“I’ll see how today goes,” TRAV said. “It’s kind of like a fight. I’m gonna gauge the later rounds off the first round.”
New members of the Pow! Wow! family are always being added, like Los Angeles-based artist Bryan “Blue.”
Blue has loved the entire Pow! Wow! experience thus far, he said, because he is surrounded by artists whom he admires, and he has the opportunity to paint with them.
He is painting a mural at the corner of Pine Avenue and Ocean Boulevard, and his theme, Blue explained, is mummies.
“I paint mummies in all kinds of styles using mummy bandages and stuff,” Blue said. “I’m making a 78-foot ball pit— like old-school Chuck E. Cheese swag— and the mummy will be in there just chillin’ out.”
And wacky designs like a mummy in a ball pit are not unusual. Around Long Beach, everything from brightly colored iguana heads to happy vegetables are popping up on the walls of stores, restaurants and community buildings.
The Pow! Wow! family is incredibly tight-knit and supportive, said Gress and co-lead director Kamea Hadar.

“If I think about the first Pow! Wow!, a lot of the guys that were there— I’d just met them there— and then since then they’ve become some of my closest friends,” Hadar said. “All these guys that were at the first Pow! Wow!, they were at my wedding.”
However, the Pow! Wow! family can’t exist without funding. Especially in the first few years after its founding, acquiring the money was difficult.
“At first, we used to have to do fundraisers or gala events,” Hadar said. “There was a lot more work […] on our end to get the funding.”
After a few years, Hadar said, companies and cities began to see the value in Pow! Wow! and in pop-art, so finding sponsors became easier.
But, as in all projects, Gress explained, “first you [have to] max out your credit cards.”
Additionally, social media has helped with raising funds, finding sponsors and increasing outreach.
“A lot of work that we do has a life in person and then also has a life online,” Gress said. “We’re trying to use the modern-day technology and everything to push out the art to more eyes. The sponsors get a lot of exposure through that channel.”
On top of their fundraising and organizational responsibilities, Wong, Gress and Hadar provide substantial support to their family— the Pow! Wow! artists.
“We put everybody first before ourselves,” Wong said.
It’s important that all three of them are painters themselves, Hadar explained. They understand the materials needed and the emotional strain that painting publicly under a timeline puts on the artists.
“We know what it’s like when we get landowners that are starting to demand certain imagery,” Hadar explained. “We know how it is, so we try to ease all that off of our artists.”
In addition to helping artists through the politics of public art and the series of emotions they go through, Wong, Gress and Hadar also help with the painting if needed, Gress said.
“Sometimes the artists want to bite off as much as they can chew, and they get [a] really overwhelming wall,” Gress said. “We’re there also to help support [and] actually help them paint the walls too. It’s always great to be a part of the walls even if [my] name’s not at the top of them.”
Pow! Wow! Long Beach is a week-long event that started with the grand opening of a pop-up shop at local retailer Made by Millworks on Sunday, July 16. The week’s events included a press preview on Monday, July 17 and talks with designer Jeff Staple and Dutch artist Adele Renault on Tuesday, July 18 and local journalist Sarah Bennett and Miami artist Tatiana Suarez on Wednesday, July 19. Throughout the week, artists are working on their murals, and the week will close with an art battle hosted by Mike Giant on Saturday, July 22.

According to the Pow! Wow! Long Beach website, the name comes from the Native-American term “powwow,” which describes “a gathering that celebrates culture, music and art,” but also from combining Pow!— the impact art has on a person— and Wow!— the reaction art solicits from a viewer.
For more information about Pow! Wow! Long Beach and its events, visit powwowlongbeach.com.
Mural locations
Apex (San Francisco)
Hoonigan
621 Golden Ave.
(7th Street and against 710 N)
Bryan “Blue” (Los Angeles)
The Loop
Pine Avenue/Ocean Boulevard
(On Pine Avenue facing Seaside Way)
Dulk (Spain)
Jergins Tunnel
Pine Avenue/Ocean Boulevard
Mina Hamada (Spain)
Made by Millworks
350 Pine Ave.
(On 4th Street by parking entrance)
Andrew Schoultz (Los Angeles)
City Place Apartments
404 Pine Ave.
GraphAids by Adele Renault (Netherlands)
441 E. 4th St.
Nate Frizzell (Long Beach)
Best Western
525 E. 1st St.
(Best Western/Poke Bar)
The Draculas (Long Beach)
V Room
918 E. 4th St.
Kevin Lyons (Philadelphia, PA)
Seabird Kitchen
967 E. 4th St.
Tatiana Suarez (Miami, FL)
MoLAA- Café Viva
628 Alamitos Ave.
Nosego (Philadelphia, PA)
The Vault Warehouses
1000 E. New York St.
TRAV MSK (Los Angeles)
U-Haul
1430 E. Anaheim St.
Dave Van Patten (Long Beach)
Alex’s Bar
2913 E. Anaheim St.
(Wall against driveway)
Bodek Hernandez (Long Beach)
Health Tree
308 Redondo Ave.
Ryan Milner (Long Beach)
Iguana Kelly’s
4306 E. Anaheim St.
Ezra One (Long Beach)
Liberation Brewery
3630 Atlantic Ave.
Niels Shoe Meulman (Netherlands)
SteelCraft parking lot
3711 Long Beach Blvd.
Noelle Martinez (Long Beach)
Atlantic Underpass
East Del Amo Boulevard/Atlantic Avenue
Sparc (Long Beach)
5917 Atlantic Ave.