Create Art at Mural Durham
Duke festival on Oct. 22 will include a variety of activities
Students, employees and local residents are invited Saturday to a celebration of the arts that will highlight music, dance, mural painting and more.
The inaugural “Mural Durham” arts festival will offer a variety of family-friendly activities at the Duke Arts Annex, including a series of DukeCreate-inspired free workshops led by Durham artists. Visitors can make a screen-printed T-shirt, create ceramic art and leave their mark by painting a portion of a large-scale mural inside the Annex building.
Anyone can contribute to the mural, which was created by Duke sophomore Masha Feingold and shows off aspects of Duke and Durham, including the city’s skyline, Duke Chapel, the Duke “D” and a bull. Each portion of the mural will be broken off into smaller sections, which will be filled in in a “paint by numbers” style with specific colors assigned to specific numbers on the wall.
Festivalgoers can also get creative with culinary treats and decorate glazed doughnuts from Durham’s Monuts Donuts.
The event will run from 1 to 4 p.m. Oct. 22 at the Arts Annex, 404 Gattis St. Free parking will be available at the Smith Warehouse parking lot off Buchanan Road. Accessible parking will be available at the Arts Annex. A detailed map and instructions on how to walk to the building from Smith Warehouse is available on the Mural Durham Facebook page.
"Our team has worked hard to make sure that the event is one that everyone can get involved in, regardless of their age or arts background,” said Charlotte McKay, the co-chair of the Duke University Union VisArts committee, which promotes creative expression and artistic innovation within Duke’s student body. “There’s a fantastic group of artists from Durham and beyond with diverse styles that we hope will inspire future works and collaboration at Duke and in our community.”
For those who work up a hunger making and creating, NOSH, Locopops, Happy + Hale and the Durham Co-op Market will offer free snacks during the event. Interactive classes and activities involving mediums like graffiti art, mixed media, and illustration will be led by local artists and muralists FRANCO, Heather Gordon, Victor Knight, Brenda Miller Holmes, Woem, Bart Cusick, and Sergio Sanchez.
The Mural Durham event is part of the larger “Artstigators” effort at Duke, which builds community around creativity in Durham and beyond. The event was planned in coordination with duArts, Duke's Arts Annex Advisory Board and the Burch Avenue Neighborhood Association.
"Everyone can find their own creative experience at Mural Durham and find inspiration to express art in their daily lives,” said Amy Unell, who organizes arts engagement and partnerships at Duke as well as with Artstigators.
After the event is over, Duke community members can visit the Mural Durham website to stay up to date on mural projects at Duke and in Durham, including the city's Mural Bike Tour, a collaboration between the Nasher Museum of Art, Preservation Durham and Museum of Durham History.