Graffiti News

Building walls became shared working spaces

Lake Effekt Art Fest added murals to Miller Beach in Gary, Indiana, during a two-day event that included June 13, 2026. According to the Chicago Tribune’s June 16 report for the Post-Tribune, the Miller Beach Arts & Creative District hosted the festival. The organisation is based at the Marshall J. Gardner Center for the Arts, and photographs documented painting on Old Miller Avenue.

The large surfaces were building walls, giving visitors a chance to see artists make decisions at a scale that a sketch or studio painting cannot convey. The event also brought together people with very different relationships to the area: artists returning from other cities, established regional practitioners and a local painter tackling one of her first large murals.

Returning artists worked alongside a new generation

James “East” Allen approached the festival as a return to familiar territory. Born in Hammond, raised in Chicago and now living in Denver, Allen had 42 years of mural experience and was collaborating with two other artists on the side of a building. He told the newspaper that childhood visits to the beach made the occasion feel like a homecoming.

Chicago artist Megan Kind brought 20 years of art practice and six years of spray painting to her contribution. Her design included a striking woman’s face, with hair extending outward in forms she compared to electricity. Danny Gamble, from Cincinnati, Ohio, brought 34 years of experience. His contribution developed the aesthetics of six letters he had studied repeatedly.

Miller Beach artist Grace Krupchak drew on native plants in Gary, including blooming lily pads, for a composition with a female figure. She described the project as one of her first large murals. Much of the planting imagery was positioned within reach without a ladder. Having grown up around local murals, she was now adding her own work to that environment.

Commissioned walls left room for artistic choice

The festival’s murals combined property owners’ agreement with artistic freedom. Maria Burud, vice president of operations for the Miller Beach Arts & Creative District, explained that owners consent to the paintings and the organisation prepares the walls several days before the commissioned work begins. The artists determine what they paint.

That arrangement matters to anyone following the relationship between graffiti culture and organised public art. Here, access to a wall and preparation were part of the event’s structure, while the imagery remained a creative decision. Allen also described how his working life had changed: after decades of painting, he was being paid and no longer working in dark alleys or on rooftops.

Kind explained another part of the process that can disappear behind a finished image. Artists use professional paint and specialised spray-can tips to control the application, much as a painter selects brushes. Looking at the mural as a made surface, rather than only a subject to photograph, opens up those questions of line, coverage and scale.

Mural walks connected pictures with neighbourhood life

Burud’s guided walk linked completed murals with paintings still underway and businesses on Lake Street. One stop was Miller Bean Ice Cream. For people interested in seeing the area, Old Miller Avenue and Lake Street are the locations identified in the report; the walk placed the artwork within the surrounding streets and shops.

A separate documentation effort pointed to the longer history behind the gathering. Hammond filmmaker Gabriel Barajas was working on “Still Crazy,” a documentary about the East Chicago-based Crazy Indiana Style Artists collective. Some members were painting at the festival. His project follows their work from the 1980s and considers how artists in their 50s continue contributing to graffiti culture.

Barajas hoped to prepare material for a 40th anniversary gallery show in autumn 2026 before releasing the documentary in 2027. Those were plans at the time of reporting. Burud likewise hoped to hold the festival annually or every other year; the report supplied no next edition date.

For mural followers, the gathering connected the visible work on buildings with the people, tools and local relationships behind it. Explore street art on Wallscape’s map.

Source: Chicago Tribune