The colorful mural in the 57th St. underpass has been hit by taggers again.

PhinneyWood reader JM sent us these photos.

Last year, taggers hit the same mural near the zoo, and the city accidently painted over it, sparking a neighborhood controversy. Cleaning crews with a high-tech sprayer were able to revive the mural to its living color.

This is what a section of the mural looked liked before the new wave of graffiti. (Thank you JM for sending us the photos.)

Seen on the south wall of Pete’s Eggnest:

As far as the folks at Pete’s know, it’s graffiti and they’ll ask the building owner to paint it out. Thanks, Loretta, for spotting it and letting us know about it. Any idea what it means?

Kudos to whoever is cleaning/repainting the mural under the 63rd St. bridge just off Aurora. Boxcar wrote in Comments on a previous post that he saw a group of girls with a red wagon full of painting supplies working on the mural two days ago. Here’s what one section looked like before:

And here’s what that same section looked like when we drove by today:

Last week we put up a post about the tagging of the mural at North 63rd under Aurora Avenue. Today, a Seattle Department of Transportation employee called to say they’re trying to find the people who originally painted the mural to clean up the graffiti, some of which you can see below.

When someone gets permission to put a mural on a bridge, they also agree to maintain it, according to the SDOT employee. City employees will now try to track down those who worked on the mural to see if they’ll take care of it. It’s only after no one steps up to do the work that the city’s graffiti rangers will paint it out, he said.

That isn’t quite the way it worked out for the zoo mural on the North 57th Street underpass. A few months ago the graffiti rangers accidentally covered that mural with gray paint that the city later paid several thousand dollars to remove.

“We definitely don’t want to paint out any murals anymore,” said the SDOT employee who asked not to be quoted by name.

Several members of the community got together to paint the mural in 1997 with the help of a matching grant and the support of the Phinney Ridge and Green Lake community councils. Lise Ward was the project manager. She’s leading an effort to restore the Zoo mural and we’ve left messages for her to let her know about the latest graffiti and the city’s attempts to track down people involved with the original project.

According to the city, Guy Allen, Dan Ayala, Amy Bengtson and Mary Gross are listed as the artists and Irene Wall with the Phinney Ridge Community Council was involved as well. 

Update: Lise is aware of the city’s interest in seeing the mural fixed. She’s not exactly sure when she can deal with this one, given she’s got her hands full with the 57th Street zoo mural. To get things moving, some volunteers would be welcome.

Lise can be contacted at lise.ward@hotmail.com, or (206) 362-8731.

The Greenwood and Phinney neighborhoods are going to start hosting a monthly art walk beginning 6-9 p.m., Dec. 12. If your business is interested in participating in the art walk, or simply staying open late to serve the crowd of art walkers, contact the chamber by Dec. 1.

John Osgood and Michele Persinger, owners of Bherd Studios, are involved in the art walk project. They are also moving their studio from 315 NW 85th St. to Greenwood Collective, 8537 Greenwood Ave. N. and volunteering at the North Seattle Boys & Girls Club for the “Art Up” program, which is the new Greenwood-Phinney Chamber of Commerce program that focuses on engaging teens in art. They will be working with them on upcoming mural projects in 2009.

Speaking of murals, check out a video that chronicles the creation of a mural at 23rd and Dearborn by Osgood, who created the Art Up Mural on NW 85th next to their studio.

The mural at the North 63rd Street underpass at Aurora Avenue has been tagged.

The tags have been reported to the city’s graffiti report line. It can take up to 10 days for the graffiti to be removed.

A tagger scrawled on the field of daisies picture outside the Francine Seders Gallery, 6701 Greenwood Ave. N.

One of our PhinneyWood readers sent in the picture, along with another one of a nearby pole that carried similar markings, albeit with a different kind of paint.

While some might call the aforementioned graffiti “art,” you’ll find stuff more conventionally thought of as such inside the gallery, which is displaying works from Lauri Chambers and Michelle Bolinger, Oct. 17 – Nov. 30.

It looks like someone took it upon themselves to clean up the graffiti on the former McDondald’s at 8533 Greenwood Ave. N.

According to a comment posted yesterday by Shiny on our earlier post:

I live a few doors down from this former McDonald’s. The tags were still up this afternoon, almost three weeks later!

So… I walked across the street to Bartell’s, purchased five razor blades for $0.99, and spent exactly one hour removing the graffiti.

Thanks, Shiny! Next step, find someone to occupy the building. If you’re that business, the sign in the window says to call John Chelico at (425) 455-0500.

Just two months after the city paid for specialists to restore the zoo mural underneath the N. 57th St. bridge, which had mistakenly been painted over, it’s been tagged again. Here’s the graffiti on the north wall:

And here it is on the south wall:

The graffiti has been reported to the city’s Graffiti Prevention & Removal tipline, so we’ll have to see what happens next.

The still empty former McDonald’s in Greenwood has again been hit with graffiti. The empty tag magnet is an unfortunate counterpoint to efforts to improve Greenwood’s “downtown” core.

Artist Ryan Henry Ward is trying to paint 50 murals in different neighborhoods in Seattle. He recently told MyBallard he’s doing it to get his name out there, as well as discourage graffiti. Here’s one he did earlier this week at the corner of 8th Avenue NW and NW 67th Street.

And you can see a shot here of Ward painting it.

If you like his work, you can see his paintings at the Orange Splot Gallery in Fremont. And if you’d like to contact him about a mural, e-mail him at ryan@lucibelle.com.

Check out this mural on 85th just west of 3rd Avenue Northwest:

It’s an example painted by artist John Osgood to kick-off The Greenwood-Phinney Chamber of Commerce’s program called “Art Up Greenwood-Phinney” to combat the rise in tagging and vandalism in the neighborhood.

The program kicks off with a ribbon cutting for the mural followed by the unveiling of an urban art exhibit called “Spray It, Don’t Say It” at Bherd Studios, 315 NW 85th St. The event runs from 3-9 p.m., Saturday, Aug. 9.

Art Up focuses on removing tagging and vandalism while also working towards creating positive outlets for young urban artists. The chamber and artists including Bherd owners Osgood and Michele Persinger, will be working with local junior high and high schools to target high-risk offenders and help them focus their energies in a positive way – by creating art for the neighborhood.

The mural is meant to provide an interesting example of the program’s plans for the community.

Persinger says she and Osgood not only have their studio in Greenwood, but they are also residents of the neighborhood. “We enjoy being a part of this community and are excited to be a part of the Art Up program,” she says.

(Thanks for the photos, Michele!)

More details from a chamber press release:

“The exhibit will feature artwork from internationally known Jef Aerosol, whose work in Europe with street stencil art inspired urban artists world-wide. His work can be seen on walls in numerous cities including Paris, London, Chicago, Amsterdam, Venice and more. Jef is a true legend in the street art world. Along with Jef, national and Pacific NW artists will be featuring their works both in the style of stenciled and free-hand street art. Artists include LittleGirlLost, CASH, DreXeL, SouLe, MassRad, Asher, JoaB and Greg Boudreau.
The exhibition will continue through September 5.”