WALLS TALK
Phoenix artists express creativity, frustrations using street art
If Phoenix walls could talk, their voices might be unrecognizable, at least according to the people who paint them for a living.
Phoenix artists are feeling the effects of gentrification downtown, where they say increased development is pushing out communities that made some neighborhoods trendy in the first place.
“It’s going to happen, and it does happen everywhere that something cool happens,” says Nyla Lee, a newer artist to the downtown Phoenix art scene. “If something’s going well and there’s money coming out of it, obviously people are going to be coming to it. But there doesn’t need to be a coffee shop on every side street.”
What is gentrification?
A general definition of gentrification, according to Michelle Dodds, a historic preservation officer for Phoenix, is how the area changes over time — when older, smaller, affordable places become hip and attract developers. The phenomena is not unique to Phoenix.
The more communities can maintain a sense of place throughout the process, the better, Dodds says.
Yai Vila, an artist from Madrid, says she chose to paint in downtown Phoenix because it’s a powerhouse for creative energy. A lot of her fellow artists had to move because of raised rent prices, she says.
The artists’ community is unsettled about how more and more high rises are appearing around them, she says, and everyone is feeling the changes.
“They make it hard to adapt because they forget about the people that were here before with low incomes,” Vila says. “It just sucks that instead of — generally speaking, there are people that aren’t doing this — but it kind of sucks that they just don’t have us in mind. They just kind of kick us out rather than allow us to all be a part of this.”
Vila says she understands how gentrification can bring growth to an area, but that doesn’t mean the change is easy to stomach.
“Gentrification is change, and it hurts, and ... I hate it,” she says. “Because it’s very unfair for everybody, but at the same time, it’s like you can’t avoid it. The people in power are going to do whatever they want to do.”
Thomas “Breeze” Marcus, an artist who has been painting in Phoenix for more than 20 years, says his Akimel O’odham and Tohono O’odham identity gives him a different perspective on gentrification. When his ancestors from the Salt River and Gila River areas were forcefully relocated to reservations in the late 1800s, they either weren’t allowed into developed parts of the city that later became Phoenix or were under restrictions when entering city limits.
“People get mad because historic homes aren’t around anymore or historic buildings are being knocked down and these brand-new buildings are being built,” he says. “But again, from this indigenous, Native perspective, who is that historic to?”
He says this part of the conversation is usually one most people forget.
“It’s like well, yeah sure, be mad that that’s gone, but you should be mad that the environment’s gone, that it’s happened before, that it’s going to continue to happen,” he says.
How artists can co-exist with development
Roosevelt Row and Grand Avenue are two areas with a high concentration of artists, and street art such as murals are a common sight.
There are fewer galleries on Roosevelt Row than in the past, Marcus says, but there are more mural painters trying to break into the downtown area.
Artists need to be able to adapt to changing situations if they want to stay in a certain neighborhood, Marcus says. To him, that means growing new skill sets, networks and resources so artists can constantly evolve. The process doesn’t come without trial and error, he says, but “as artists, it’s what we do — create something out of nothing.”
New development “shouldn’t be so excessive and so aggressive,” says Isaac Caruso, another Phoenix muralist. However, artists will find ways to keep creating art, even if that means moving to a new place every time gentrification rears its head, he says.
Developers might commission artists to create murals or sculptures for the new properties, he says.
“It does have a downside, but the cool thing is that it gives people like us a source of income because they become our clients, and we’re always going to be able to find opportunities to be creative,” Caruso says.
Tato Caraveo, a Phoenix artist best known for his surrealist murals with a whimsical style, says increased development sometimes rips historic buildings out of the landscape and raises the cost of living, causing artists to move. However, not all development is bad news for artists, he added.
“A lot of them have moved off to other neighborhoods that are sure to be gentrified later on in a few years,” he says. “It’s also beneficial to some artists because a lot of the development’s incorporating art.”
Phoenix is a “magnet city” for development, says Dominic Braham of the Local Initiatives Support Corporation in Phoenix. Like some artists, he sees positives and negatives in development.
On the bright side, development can provide more resources and better access to transportation and different community organizations. But development often isn’t equitable, so not everyone can enjoy the benefits, he says.
Braham says housing policies need to be more equitable and provide more affordable, mixedincome housing. There also needs to be more public spaces, such as parks and community centers, and assistance for renters on how to buy property. Artist Tara Sharpe says artists usually choose to live in places with less pressure and more affordable housing, especially when a lot of their money goes into buying more paint, art supplies and other necessities for their craft. As an artist, you have to “lower your bottom line,” she says.
“We move to these places and love them and all these other things, and then you get priced out,” she says. “Ironically, it’s like you make it interesting, but then that same interest gets very picky as to what can stay and what has an acceptable flavor and what is less desirable.”
A neighborhood, not an art district
Beatrice Moore moved out of the Warehouse District when she realized developers were looking to build the arena now called Talking Stick Resort Arena. She knew it meant property prices would increase, so she bought a building in the Grand Avenue area in 1992. Ever since, Moore has been the most prominent voice of Grand Avenue Arts and Preservation.
She prefers not to call Grand Avenue an arts district, because she thinks of it as a neighborhood — one where artists are not the only residents.
“What people have to realize, Number 1, about
these neighborhoods is that they’re not about artists, necessarily,” Moore says. “They’re about people; they’re about communities. And these neighborhoods had people in them before artists started moving in. So people talk about artists as if they are the be-all and end-all of some of these neighborhoods, and that’s just not the case.”
Zoning ordinances and where developers choose to flock to go hand-in-hand, Moore says. She says artists who initially moved onto Roosevelt Row didn’t realize the area’s zoning was conducive to high-rise buildings. Once more people wanted to live downtown, the market and incentive to build more buildings grew accordingly, she says. Part of the growth happened when housing for Arizona State University students opened downtown in 2008. To preserve a neighborhood, “you have to really truly embrace things that make your neighborhood diverse,” Moore says. That means embracing places such as Horace Steele Commons, a transitional housing facility, and Teen Challenge Arizona, a rehabilitation center.
Cleaning up a neighborhood is a catch-22, Moore says. Of course there are positive outcomes, but when a neighborhood becomes more attractive to more potential residents, speculators and developers become interested, too.
“When things get too spiffy, then unfortunately, a lot of times it attracts the wrong elements,” she
says. “And by the wrong element, I mean speculators who could care less what really happens to your community.”
Still, she says artists shouldn’t stop painting murals just because it attracts attention in neighborhoods. Instead, Phoenix should be focusing on creating more affordable housing.
“Until we solve the affordable-housing problem, which is a huge problem, people are going to continue to get pushed out of neighborhoods as they get fixed up,” she says. “It’s just the nature of the beast. We really need to come up with a solution, a far-reaching solution, for the affordable-housing crisis that many of our cities are in the midst of right now.”
To rent a two-bedroom apartment, metro Phoenix residents need to earn about $19.50 an hour, according to a study by the National Low Income Housing Coalition. The mean hourly wage of renters in Phoenix is about $17.59.
The importance of street art
Caruso says the public nature of street art is one of its best qualities. Because it’s public, it is accessible to anyone.
Marcus agrees. Hanging a piece of art in a gallery might have a limited audience, he says, whereas street art can be seen by anyone.
“You have a bigger audience, so what are you going to say with it?” he says.
Many artists want to create “beauty in the face of ugliness,” Marcus says.
“When we make art, it’s actually saying something profound,” he says. “It has some sort of substance to it. It’s addressing an issue.”
Caraveo, a professional artist for the past 25 years or so, saw an artist working when he was a kid and fell in love with the craft.
He says public art can inspire kids, just like it influenced him.
Since she was a teenager, Sharpe has been exhibiting and selling art that usually focuses on the female form. Her style comes from a hyperawareness of people’s mannerisms and the way they carry themselves — a combination she called delicate but with strength.
“I just think that where we’re going with public art is really inspirational, and I hope that it inspires other cities too,” she says.