(Image: @jdco.design)
(Image: @jdco.design)
With Seattle in the midst of a new crackdown on vandalism, a retaining wall behind a North Capitol Hill mansion that has long been a prominent canvas for taggers and graffiti artists now hosts a 156-foot long by 8-foot tall mural celebrating the homeowner’s pride for a hometown sports team
Artist Craig Johnson tell CHS he is wrapping up the few-week project to create the new Seattle Kraken mural that now rises in the busy 1500 block of 10th Ave E across from the St. Mark’s greenbelt.
“Today wasn’t great for production,” Johnson said Friday. “I have to work between the rain.”
The new work depicting Kraken imagery, players, and branding including the second-year team’s “scrimshaw” pattern is a collaboration, Johnson said, between the artist, the Kraken, and big fan Brian Flynn, the investor and a co-founder behind Mexican airline Volaris and a casino and travel analytics firm. Flynn is reportedly a supporter of the team and close with ownership. Johnson said the Kraken were part of planning the work and making sure it was up to the team’s brand standards.
(Image: @jdco.design)
Flynn, meanwhile, has added the new art project as he has put the 1924-built, Edwin Ivey-designed mansion behind the wall on the market for $13.2 million. He purchased the property for just over $3 million in 2001, according to county records.
Johnson, who also recently completed a project from a local business marking the “Madrona Village” area along 34th Ave E, says he enjoyed the Kraken project and the many dog walkers, runners, and neighbors he met along 10th Ave E. Some brought him tea and pizza as he went about his work.
“”Painting the mural is a fantastic experience in itself,” he said. “Interacting with the community is just as important.”
As a busy muralist and commercial artist, he is also well aware of the tensions over tagging and graffiti. Johnson said the new work had already been defaced five times even as it was still going up. He’d prefer taggers and street artists find other spaces but “wasn’t naive to think it wasn’t going to happen” to the Kraken mural.
As for Mayor Bruce Harrell’s war on graffiti, Johnson mostly wants to stay out of it. But efforts to give artists other outlets that are also part of the Harrell administration’s plan will help.
“Some people just want to be destructive,” Johnson said. “I hope there’s a creative outlet. There’s enough wall space for everybody.”
PLEASE HELP KEEP CHS PAYWALL-FREE!
Subscribe to CHS to help us pay writers and photographers to cover the neighborhood. CHS is a pay what you can community news site with no required sign-in or paywall. Become a subscriber to help us cover the neighborhood for as little as $5 a month.
Ew. This is just a giant billboard. If you’re going to do a “mural”, consider something more artistic and community focused instead of an advertisement by a rich guy for his rich friends.
The graffiti was way more interesting and it wasn’t anything special. Good thing it will be back soon. I’ve never even done graffiti and I want to go tag this ugly thing.
If this isn’t changed to “BROKEN” within 24 hours I will be disappointed.
Agree with AJ!
Ah, some transplant that thinks graffiti is part of being in a city… go back to Ohio. As a 22 year member of the cap hill community and live directly across from this I can assure you this was not part of being in a city. It only an eyesore that brought crime. One woman was assaulted when she asked taggers to stop. And vandalism in the adjacent lot.
I hope tent city surround your apartment for two years. I mean that’s part of being in a City right??
Agree with Nathan.
Me too.
Aw, widdle bb wants their money to buy their way out of having to see the poors. I’ve been to a lot of cities, and yes, graffiti is part of living in a city. Murals are too and they are generally treated with some level of respect, but this is.just a billboard with no artistic merit or ties to the community so it will be defaced immediately and repeatedly.
Thanks long time “cap hill” guy for the explainer on how as a poor apartment dweller I’m detached from my community and simply don’t understand the deep history a slightly older transplant has with this two year old sports team.
As for wishing a tent city surround my home – wow, that is an incredibly cold, shallow, and elitist point of view, so very compassionate of you to see the unhoused as an inconvenience and not human beings. These are people suffering in tragic conditions while you sit in your empty mansion complaining on the internet about graffiti.
Are you blaming graffiti on the working poor? What a gross implication.
looking at Evan’s comment, these people are just going to pick out one tiny thing you said to gripe about and ignore the rest
What do you suggest? Perhaps looking for root causes of graffiti and eliminating them, rather than just whitewashing the graffiti is the answer
I don’t suggest anything because I never said I didn’t like it, fam. 🤭🤷♀️ Just letting the guy know he’s not going to win speaking with people like you.
Yes, “root causes” need to be addressed, but that is a very long-term proposition, and even then success is doubtful. In the meantime, crime needs to be dealt with (and prosecuted) according to the rule of law.
The root cause: creativity and boredom.
Mansion? There’s nice apartments across the street…if you’re such and advocate for living amongst the poorer, you should stay at an encampment. I work hard to have a nice home and don’t mind insulting people who wish my neighbors Ill. By the way, what’s wrong with the wall being painted. Is that not cool enough for you?
Enabling people with drug problems to continue to have drug problems and live in tents is not compassion. It is harmful.
Hopefully the owners are also springing for some security so any would be vandals can be apprehended before they defece the new mural.
The artist (Craig Johnson) told me that he is putting a special coating on the mural, so that it can be more easily cleaned if vandalism occurs.
Nice use of an often vandalized space! I love the energy the Kraken bring to town and no doubt commuters will enjoy the mural. I hope taggers find somewhere else (or no where else, plz?) to mark up!
I’d almost rather have the graffiti than this. Yuck!
Maybe leave it up to those that live in this neighborhood. There is a reason we pay 50% more to live on this end. This wall was painted monthly by church volunteers. But graffiti is cool, it matches the poster in you studio apartment.
Why? I feel like the tagging vulgar penis drawings are actually worse than this Kraken mural..
I think you issued the story – he is selling the mansion for $13m and it’s hard to sell when the back is covered in graffiti. People also climb over the fence to use the pool…
Trying to figure out who buys a $13mm house that backs up to a major arterial, and where there’s tagging and apparently trespassing going on…
When he bought the house in 2001 there was no tagging in that area, or in much else of Capitol hill for that matter. That’s what some people dont seem to get. Seattle was a city back in 2002 and graffiti, while present and sporadically problematic, was NOTHING like it is now. It exploded in the last five years. Was that when we all started to live in a real city?
Are you kidding? Capitol Hill and Rainier Ave/SoDo/Georgetown/Downtown had graffiti since the 70s or so…
Awww the poor ultra-rich man. So sad.
This site was in constant use by graffiti vandals (not “artists”), so this is an improvement and hopefully will deter further vandalism. That said, however, I wish the mural was a little less commercial.
Graffiti is art. Sorry to tell you this. And a lot better than whatever this monstrosity ad is.
Murals are art, but most graffiti is just squiggles and gang signatures, not to mention it’s illegal, so it’s vandalism of public and private property.
I am fine with both of those things over advertisements.
There is very little gang graffiti in Seattle.
I live in Modera. Come on by!
Are empty cans of Kiltz Paint, or Krylon Paint, or their dropped plastic lids the Taggers leave behind, inclusive?
Graffiti on the length of this wall only really became common in 2021. Looking at Google street view starting in 2007 – the wall is consistently just gray paint.
No, it’s been going on for several years. The only reason you didn’t always see it is that a woman who lives nearby was regularly painting it over (with the permission of the property owner). She stopped doing that about a year ago.
lol there’s literally painted over graffiti in 2007, 2008, and 2011 views. Why are you making stuff up? We can literally go check and see you’re wrong.
Hate to break it to Nathan and others, but graffiti is more a part of *this* city than a new and shiny hockey team will ever be. Seattle was a (in)famous graffiti hotspot long before covid and will hopefully remain one for ever. This is a dumb ad.
Did the folks involved in this get an off premise billboard permit from the city?
Right. If you, the property owner, want to do this Kraken thing ‘Get a permit!’ If someone else want to graffiti the same private property, which this retaining wall is as it belongs to the homeowner, ‘no problem!’ Frankly I’d like to see this wall go back to being, well, just a wall. That’s what it was for many, many years, despite claims by some that it was always an open air art show. But if we’re going to hold anyone legally accountable for defacing it, let’s start with those who don’t own it, have no responsibilities for it’s maintenance, and have nothing better to do than doodle on private and public infrastructure throughout our city.
The easy answer is to just grow ivy on it. Make graffiti hard and avoids this 35+ response thread. The other issue is the owner is probably stuck for a couple of years with his attempts at offloading the 13m mansion.
Let’s start with attacking the rich for petty crime over the poor. How about that?
What makes you think people who spray graffiti are poor…. I used to work with a woman who came in all upset one day because her teen was arrested for vandalism because of graffiti. He was as snotty little white kid who lived in a custom built home over on Bainbridge Island.. Told his mom he’d “die for his art”..
Why I love the Capitol Hill Blog. It’s a microcosm of our city and country. It’s not that people can’t get along, it’s that they don’t want to get along. They love to attack each other, rich/poor, young/old, white/black, etc. calling people names because they have different views it’s all very much on display here and on the campaign trails. The fact is we’re divided because some people want a beautiful city and others prefer squalor so how do you make it a place for everyone? That’s where the hard work for everyone starts.