Organizers behind Detroit’s Murals in the Market have been quietly restoring three works of art in Eastern Market to celebrate the festival’s 10th anniversary and upcoming return to the district.
Muralists Ed Irmen and Jay Kopicki are at work completely repainting a mural by Chicago-born artist Hebru Brantley, one of the festival’s first when it debuted in 2015.
“It’s a pretty big honor to be able to recreate somebody else’s work and to be trusted to do it the right way,” Irmen tells Metro Times during a break. “It’s really important that we preserve a lot of these pieces because ultimately time takes its toll, and especially with this being from the first festival that we ever had, it makes it of pretty significant importance to the market.”
The mural is located at the corner of Russell and Adelaide Streets and features Brantley’s “Flyboy” character, an aviator, goggles-wearing child that symbolizes freedom and dreams. It’s also a nod to the famed Tuskegee Airmen from World War II.
Within the past week, Irmen and Kopicki have also restored a watermelon-themed “Welcome to Eastern Market” mural made in 2017 by Zak Meers, as well as Scott Hocking’s 2018 installation “Seventeen Shitty Mountains,” made from concrete tubes salvaged from the old Detroit Water and Sewerage Department building in the district and painted in neon Day-Glo colors.
After years bringing dozens of murals to Eastern Market, the festival rebranded as Murals in Islandview in 2023 following parent company 1XRUN’s relocation to that neighborhood. Earlier this summer, organizers announced Murals in the Market would return to Eastern Market for its 10th anniversary.
1XRUN co-founder Jesse Cory says murals typically last between five and ten years before the paint starts fading and chipping. He adds that organizers did not necessarily intend for the festival’s murals to last this long. “All we asked was for [business owners] to keep the murals up for at least a year,” he explains, adding, “The fact that it’s a walkable mural gallery, I think the business owners like that it exists.”
There is always an ephemeral nature to street art, and mural festivals often paint over their walls, including Murals in the Market in certain high-traffic areas of the district. But Cory says the nonprofit that operates Eastern Market selected the three works for restoration because they have become part of the identity of the district.
“It wasn’t necessarily about how well-known the artist is,” Cory says. “They wanted things that they felt represented the spirit of the market.”
“Seventeen Shitty Mountains” was an instant hit, even being relocated by Eastern Market to a more visible area.
The installation now has a fresh coat of fluorescent paint. It’s a cheeky reference to “Seven Magic Mountains,” an installation by Swiss artist Ugo Rondinone made from neon-painted rocks in the Nevada desert.
Courtesy photo
Scott Hocking’s 2018 installation “Seventeen Shitty Mountains” is made from concrete tubes salvaged from the old Detroit Water and Sewerage Department.
“[Hocking] painted them these Day-Glo colors, I think, to represent those rock sculptures that are in Nevada,” Cory says. “I think it was kind of like Detroit’s version of that, like, ‘You have your rocks, we have our sewer tubes.’”
The Brantley piece had become so degraded that 1XRUN got the blessing of Brantley to completely re-create the mural from scratch using high-quality photos and color-matched paint, starting over with a blank white slate of primer.
“From what you would see less than a week ago to today, the vibrancy is popping off the wall,” Irmen says. “It’s hard to believe it was ever these colors.”
For the Brantley mural, Irmen and Kopicki developed a technique where Kopicki starts from the bottom and draws the lines, with Irmen following behind.
Irmen describes the effect as similar to an image slowly loading line-by-line on an old-school internet connection.
“It kind of gives it that dial-up loading screen kind of vibe,” he says. “You’re seeing the image come together as we’re moving down the wall.”
The Murals in the Market festival has been the backdrop to big development projects in the historic shopping district in recent years. In 2018, it was named one of the world’s best mural festivals by Smithsonian magazine. Eastern Market has also seen an influx of football season tailgaters with the Detroit Lions doing so well and Ford Field nearby.
Murals have flourished in the city as Mayor Mike Duggan has cracked down on graffiti. Cory says the festival has not had any issues with the murals being vandalized or tagged.
“Many people that are from the graffiti culture, we work with them on an ongoing basis,” Cory says. “We have a good relationship.”
He adds, “The pressure on the city to buff, all the stuff that they’ve done to put pressure on graffiti pushed a lot of people who did want to paint outside … it pushed them more into becoming a muralist. Our culture crosses over.”
Courtesy photo
A watermelon-themed “Welcome to Eastern Market” mural made in 2017 by Zak Meers.
Cory says funding for this year’s festival came from Eastern Market, as well as the Gilbert Family Foundation and General Motors, a new sponsor this year. He also says the festival has become financially established to be able to pay all artists this year, a festival first.
“It’s good to be back, and it’s good to be funded,” he says. “In years past, we always announced it before we raised a dollar. … The first year was really tough, the second year was really tough, the third year was really tough, the fourth year was really tough. This year, I think the value is there, the tenure of it is there.”
He adds, “Detroit’s a very unique place … We have a huge art community, and we have a very substantial arts economy. It’s a whole industry. You don’t see that in other cities.”
This year’s festival is set for Sept. 15-22, bringing more than a dozen new murals to the district from local artists like Amy Fisher Price, Bakpak Durden, Freddy Diaz, Ijania Cortez, Ivan Montoya, Nicole Macdonald, Phil Simpson, Sheefy Mcfly, and Tony WHLGN, among others.
New this year, the festival’s headquarters will be situated in a warehouse at 1520 Winder St., which includes an exhibition celebrating 10 years of 1XRUN’s visual artist residency program at Detroit’s Movement music festival. Other festival programming includes panel discussions, tours, and DJs.
Irmen says he hopes to finish the restoration work before the festival starts. He and Kopicki are also creating new murals for the festival, as well as working with 1XRUN behind the scenes.
“I can’t wait to see what the artists put up this year,” Irmen says.
