Spray paint cans were once again rattling Friday at the HOPE Outdoor Gallery.
After years of delay, Austin's landmark graffiti park reopened on a 17-acre site near the airport. The property is part art park, part cultural events center. It features work from more than 30 artists inside the 6,000-square-foot gallery and on mural walls.
There's also a cafe and shop where one could buy, say, spray paint to tag the gallery's outer walls.
On opening day, visitors painted robots, band names, eyeballs and Labubus in all colors and sizes. Friends lifted friends up on shoulders to add finishing touches. Children gleefully sprayed purples and reds back and forth with wild abandon.
“I love that there's different calibers of artists here,” Antonio Delgado said as he watched his family attack the walls. “[There are] some new artists, some younger artists and then more formally trained artists.”
Delgado used to live on Baylor Street, three blocks away from the original graffiti park in the Clarksville neighborhood. He said he would often go and watch people make art.
“I'd sit and song write there all the time,” he said. “I have a lot of fond memories.”
He said he was sad when the site closed in 2019, but he was excited to bring his family to the new location.
“It’s great to see inside that we have this ... formal space that's championing mural art,” he said, “and then outside we've got space where we can just play and have fun and practice.”
Some visitors, including local artist Eddie Martinez, brought their own paint. With his dog Bonnie at his side, he finished up a mural that said “Te amo para siempre” in big block red letters with bubbly blue clouds behind them.
“People have been taking pictures with it, posing with it, so it's pretty cool,” he said.
A temporary exhibit turned long term
Andi Scull, founder and creative director of the gallery, said people were already waiting to get in an hour before opening Friday.
"We're back," she said.
She's eager to bring back the old vibe, too — one that's all about creating safe places for the creative community to come together.
The original HOPE Outdoor Gallery was supposed to be temporary when it opened in 2010.
Scull had gotten permission from the owners of the property to use the foundation of an unfinished condo development for a graffiti park. For the first big installation, she enlisted Shepard Fairey, who helped her launch a campaign called Helping Other People Everywhere (HOPE), which connects artists to humanitarian causes. The street artist is known for his OBEY Giant and Obama “HOPE” posters.
The towering concrete slabs became a canvas for anyone with a spray paint can — regardless of talent. New murals were painted over old ones on a regular basis, offering a “living art exhibit” that drew locals and tourists alike.
That exhibit lasted nearly a decade.
C.K. Chin, the gallery’s director of hospitality, said that's because the site was about more than graffiti.
"On any given day," he said, "you'll have someone putting up a mural, a random tourist that popped by to just look at some art, somebody doing breakdancing on top of a piece of concrete, a proposal happening in the corner."
It also gave people a space to try new things.
“I think that's the coolest part about what we really learned in the 10 years of the project,” Scull said. “Try things big, and try weird things.”
But HOPE shut down in 2019 as work began on a luxury condo building.
You won't know unless you try
Scull and Chin knew they needed a permanent home for the gallery.
“It was really audacious and really kind of crazy to even consider. But, like we said, you don't know what you can do or can't do until you try,” Chin said, adding that Scull has a “never-say-die, anything-is-possible” mentality.
Local artists and supporters pushed them to find a way for HOPE to live. They ultimately found the spot on Dalton Lane near the airport.
The project stalled because of construction issues, permitting challenges and the pandemic. But on Friday none of that mattered.
“The excitement of what we saw happen at the other location is already happening with regard to it being really about public art, an installation art park," Scull said. "It was always beyond murals or graffiti or writers."
Jen Morton, who was "art watching" with her family, said she thinks the current space feels more intentional.
“The last one was like a pirate situation. It felt like anyone could come and just do whatever they wanted. And it felt a little illegal," she said. "And this one feels like it's obviously meant to be here.”
