HUNTINGTON, W.Va. (AP) - When 24-year old Chicago native and skateboarder Nikko Kimbrough moved to Chesapeake, Ohio, he feared he would never find a skate park.
He was pleasantly shocked to find the Huntington skate park just a stone's skip over the Ohio River tucked behind the floodwall.
Already a regular at the park, Kimbrough is also stoked to see some art blooming on the nearby floodwall.
"This little park is sick, and I couldn't believe I found out and that it's so close," said Kimbrough, who teaches at Tumble World in Chesapeake. "When I moved here I was like where am I going to skate, and it is right over the bridge ... I like the whole art idea. My mom is big into art and I am big into art and the set-up is sweet. Like I was saying with videos, if he does have a whole collage or mural or something that really stands out, it will make this park more known, and I like the leaves in general. Like, I don't even know how he did it."
He is Chris Wallace, chairman of Generation Huntington, which is a young professionals committee under the Huntington Regional Chamber of Commerce.
What he did is called reverse graffiti - taking large-scale stencils of artistic designs (in this instance a tree) and power washing the wall to leave a mural on the floodwall. No chemicals were used in the process.
And for better or worse, the murals are not going to be at the skate park. It was only a test, but just a sign of things to come.
Recently, Wallace, who also owns Brand Yourself at Heritage Station, and a crew hung the stencils (cut by Robert C. Byrd Institute) and power washed out the mural to see if it would work.
Located near the entrance of the skate park, tucked into the west end of Harris Riverfront Park, the mural of a tree with leaves was a success and will lead to a full blown project in the spring at the park on the city side of the floodwall.
The murals will consist of more artistic panels depicting a train, riverboat and people walking at a park. Those panels will alternate (park, train, park, riverboat, park) down the floodwall on the Veterans Memorial Boulevard side between 8th and 12th streets.
Wallace said everyone at Generation Huntington is excited to get the mural project moving, as getting some type of floodwall murals at Harris Riverfront Park has been the source of a thousand discussions through the years since Huntington is surrounded by fellow Ohio River cities such as Point Pleasant, West Virginia; Catlettsburg, Kentucky; and, of course, Portsmouth, Ohio, where Lafayette, Louisiana, painter Robert Dafford, who also designed the Point Pleasant murals, has painted one of the world's largest works of art - more than 2,000 feet of 20-foot murals - along their floodwall.
On a shoestring budget, Generation Huntington is using about $10,000 that is left from a $15,000 grant from the Cabell County Commission. Part of that money, about $5,000, was used to buy materials to paint the murals on 8th Street and 10th Street underpasses.
"This is the second year I have been the chair of Generation Huntington and it has been one of my goals to use that money toward something good in Huntington," Wallace said. "We came up with several ideas to spend the money toward, but it was almost unanimously voted on that we should use it on the floodwall. Once they voted on that it was then time to figure out how to do it. Once we started researching how much it takes to cover a large portion of the wall we realized it was way more than the $15,000 that was allocated. Plus if we wanted to spend it on paintings we wanted to make sure we have enough money to touch it up. So working on it for a while we started to figure out the best way to attack it."
Wallace, a well-traveled graphic artist who is familiar with a wide range of public art, street art and graffiti art, started exploring large-scale reverse graffiti as an economical option that would fit their budget for muraling at least part of the wall.
"I had this panel cut for about a month but just didn't have the time to go try it out," Wallace said. "RCBI helped us with their laser cutters. We gave them the art work and they tweaked it and made it cutable and they cut it for us. Once we gave them the dimensions for the wall, they also figured out a way to attach it. They were able to bend metal and to make steel hangars for the top of the wall."
Wallace said this winter the other 20-foot panels will be cut by RCBI and will hopefully be ready for volunteers to help place the panels in the spring.
"I am still tweaking the finished art but once we get the panels cut next spring we will need volunteers to help place the panels and help stay organized as we go down and power wash," Wallace said." Right now it will be a few months to get all the panels cut and then once the weather turns in spring time we look at getting it on the wall. The good thing about this is that we are thinking in the future, these panels will be stored and in five years they can be touched back up."
Information from: The Herald-Dispatch