DES MOINES

Huge student mural erased outside Central Campus

Timothy Meinch
tmeinch@dmreg.com
A portion of the mural that was located outside Central Campus.

A graffiti mural created by students near Des Moines Central Campus disappeared over the weekend.

Students planned to finish the 200-foot-long mural this week by adding a tribute to Kendall Foster, the 17-year-old North High student who died in April after being shot in the chest.

But sometime during the weekend,  graffiti-removal crews covered the colorful artwork with beige paint.

Leaders of the student art program that created the mural say they had permission from the school to add the artwork   to the floodwall beneath the Martin Luther King Jr. Parkway bridge along the Raccoon River. They also thought they had permission from the city.

But Des Moines officials said Monday that they had not OKed the project, and miscommunication led to the mural's removal.

The graffiti-artist mentor coordinating the student project is not pleased.

“The city of Des Moines just erased a student mural project stretching over 200 ft, illustrating empowerment, activism, having a voice, and believing in oneself,” local artist As Phate posted on Facebook Monday.

A student mural project that spanned 200 feet beneath Martin Luther King Jr. Parkway near Central Campus was painted over  Sunday as part of the city's graffiti removal program.

“(What) do you clowns think is gonna happen now that the mural has been erased and replaced with a clean slate?”

Des Moines Public Schools students created the mural that was located outside Central Campus. It was painted over this weekend.

The miscommunication obliterated nearly 100 hours of work and more than $3,000 spent on paint and hiring As Phate — known in Des Moines for the murals outside the Des Moines Social Club's courtyard  — to work with students.

The student-mural project, part of RunDSM and Des Moines Public Schools’ Urban Leadership program, began more than a year ago.

That's when Central Campus teachers Kristopher Rollins and Emily Lang began conversations with the school and the city, which owns the floodwall and the land it sits on near the school.

Des Moines Public Works Director Jonathan Gano said he loved the concept and gave preliminary approval. City employees even took initiative to coordinate with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers because the group maintains the floodwall and the levee beneath it.

A student mural project that spanned 200 feet  beneath Martin Luther King Jr. Parkway outside Central Campus was painted over with beige paint Sunday as part of the city's graffiti removal program.

Gano said he was ready to discuss details, like signing waivers and the artistic concept, which would need city approval. But communication stopped sometime in the fall.

He assumed the district put the project on hold, perhaps because access to the wall required crossing railroad tracks, he said.

Turns out the school had given its stamp of approval and communicated details about the plan in emails. Or so it thought. The public works director said he never got those emails, likely because of an error in the email address.

“The school thought they were communicating with public works and I have nothing,” he said. "I had no idea. And no one else at the city did either.”

A student mural project that spanned 200 feet beneath Martin Luther King Jr. Parkway outside Central Campus was painted over as part of the city's graffiti removal program.

Project coordinators interpreted the silence as a green light from the city. So As Phate, whose legal name is Brandon Warner, started painting the wall with 15 students during the last week of April.

“All the parties that needed to know, we thought they knew," Rollins said.

A portion of the mural that was located outside Central Campus but disappeared over the weekend.

It was a complaint made through the city's graffiti reporting system that resulted in the mural being painted over, Gano said.

Someone filed a formal complaint, which was processed by the city's Park and Recreation Department and forwarded to the third-party contractor that handles graffiti cleanup.

Everyone followed proper protocol since there were no special provisions established for this site, Gano said.

“You could paint the Mona Lisa on the side of a building, and unless someone intervenes, it’s going to get painted over,” he said. “An approved public art would have a (formal) communication with it … We were still very conceptual at the point where the discussion left off."

The mural included text that read "Writing is sacred" and "Ideas R forever," and illustrations of Cesar Chavez, Yuri Kochiyama and Maya Angelou.

The students planned to finish it this week with the tribute to Foster. Some of the artists were friends of the North High sophomore, Rollins said.

“A lot of them used that experience I think to kind of overcome some of the trauma and grief they had experienced,” he said.

On Monday the students from the graffiti-art workshop expressed a range of emotions, Rollins said. Some were sad. Others were angry. Everyone was a bit confused.

“It was kind of a dream of ours to talk to the city and get that retention wall behind Central,” he said. “Now I see that was kind of too good to be true, I guess.”

He said that he wants As Phate to try the project again either with the same students or new ones. Gano said he'd  welcome the opportunity to revisit the idea and take the concept through the proper approval process.