Northwest Wayne News

Mayor Mike Duggan joined city leaders, artists and community members today to celebrate the completion of its 200th City Walls mural at 14229 Jefferson Avenue, the site of the mural. City Walls, which plays an essential role in the city’s Blight to Beauty campaign, is in its sixth year of empowering Detroit artists bringing beauty to the City. 

Nicole Macdonald, who won the commission through the City Walls “Show Love” Open Call is the artist for the 200th City Walls mural. “The Jefferson-Chalmers neighborhood is a unique spot in the city, located on the river with canals and urban gardens,” Macdonald said. “I tried to capture some of this uniqueness while highlighting residents who are working hard to restore and reimagine this corner of the city. These individuals (in the mural), as well as others in the neighborhood, have spent long hours working the soil and trying to better their community. As the artist of the mural and a life-long Detroiter, I try to go beyond the typical, capitalist, auto industry narrative and raise people's awareness of our lesser-known history and accomplishments.” 

"City Walls is one of our best examples of how we are transforming blight into beauty in Detroit,” said Mayor Mike Duggan.  “Watching these murals come to life across the city and bring joy to neighborhoods who have been involved in their creation from the outset is just great.” 

USA Today readers and a panel of experts named Detroit the 5th best city in America for our collection of beautiful murals. Rochelle Riley, Director of Arts and Culture for the city, said, the goal is to become No. 1, or No. 2 behind Philadelphia Mural Arts, which has been commissioning murals for 40 years and partnered with Detroit ACE to host the nation’s first Street Art Summit last month. 

The City of Detroit has partnered with CANVS, a Mural Mapping app that will eventually showcase every mural in the city and an app that lets users identify murals on site. 

Original source can be found here.