Local artists will paint one last mural for Wichita’s Avenue Art Days in August

The Douglas Design District is saying goodbye to a program that has added 107 murals to the walls of local businesses in Wichita and helped launch the careers of local and regional artists.

Through Avenue Art Days, an annual event founded by Workroom owner Janelle King in 2015, local and regional artists have devoted one weekend every year to painting murals along Douglas.

Taken together, the murals painted during the AAD events have totaled 3 miles of art. They have become embedded in the Wichita community, and are now used as backdrops for students’ senior portraits and selfie opportunities.

“I think the idea was to elevate local artists and to get mural art and street art accepted as legitimate pieces of art,” said Mollie Smith, a member of the AAD planning committee for eight years. “In a lot of ways, that goal has been met. The timing just feels right to kind of go out with a bang and see, down the road, where they land.”

To conclude the eight-year run and to “celebrate the city’s talented local artists,” local and regional artists will add one more mural to the Wichita community in a final AAD event Aug. 25-29.

Instead of painting as many as 24 murals during one event, this year artists will collaborate to paint one single, large-scale legacy mural on the west-facing wall of Moler’s Camera at 2609 E. Douglas, Smith said.

The committee is looking for artists and volunteers who have participated in previous Avenue Art Days to participate in this year’s installment. The committee is taking submissions for the design of the mural at www.AvenueArtDays.com.

The artist who has the winning submission will receive $4,000 and lead a team of past AAD artists and friends on the weekend of Aug. 25 in the installation of the piece.

“In acknowledging that our mission has been met and with the decision to conclude the program, we decided that we really wanted to have the opportunity to go out with a bang, honor the legacy of what we’ve created for this program and honor all the individuals who have contributed along the way,” King said.

In 2015, King said, the AAD committee was knocking on local businesses’ doors asking them to donate their walls for a mural. They were initially met with skepticism, and the question of, “What, graffiti?” came up often.

Through the years, King said, AAD has grown from an event created to legitimize street art and to support local artists, into an event that has created full-time jobs and prompted business owners to start calling artists and asking for murals.

In a news release, King said that AAD is now “competing with artists more and more for commissioned work.” King said the committee feels as if it has met its goal of installing “highly visible, public art.”

“From senior portraits and families getting out and taking photos with the murals all along the district, and we hear constantly from the businesses who have received them how much they love it,” King said. “They get people coming and taking photos and tagging their business. It’s really helped make each of these individual businesses feel engaged and a part of their community.

The 2022 weekend AAD event will also include a “Final Friday” event sponsored by Intrust Bank at the location of the new mural with food, drinks, music and opportunity to purchase AAD-themed merchandise and view the final mural.

“It’s just bittersweet because I feel like we’ve put a lot of work into it and developed this thing,” Smith said. “For me, it’s going to be tough, and I think that’s why I kind of hold out that optimism that it’ll be back at some point.”