HAMMOND — Aerosol fumes and old school hip hop beats filled the air on the hot summer day as artists clambered up ladders or rose up scissor lifts, spraying bright paint on the blank wall.
They stood absorbed in their work, their spray cans moving like hummingbirds as their pieces took shape while a crowd of bystanders watched transfixed, sometimes snapping photos to capture the ongoing progress. Big Gothic letters, abstract patterns, jungle scenes and other colorful tableaux slowly came into focus.
A newly formed arts association hopes to bring a splash of color and spark of creativity to Hammond through what it's calling AHA! moments.
Local artists, including Ish Muhammad Nieves, Leon Dombrowski, Linda Dorman and Seda Turan, formed the AHA! Arts Hammond Association, whose board includes Hammond Chief of Staff Phil Tallion. It just staged its debut event this past weekend.
The nonprofit arts group hosted the inaugural Merge Walls street art festival, which is plans to make an annual affair. The artists Felix "Flex" Maldonado, Zor Zor Zor, Justice Roe, Narrow, Ruben Aguirre, Rise, D’Tel, Kuaze and Nick Fury covered the Merge Building at 5920 Hohman Ave. with colorful graffiti murals.
"It's a street art festival featuring graffiti writers from the Midwest, focused on Northwest Indiana and Chicago," Nieves said. "This is an opportunity for us to showcase the local talent. It is world-class art The artists who are featured here travel the world showing this art form all over. Justice Rowe is all across Chicago. He's pretty much part of the Chicago landscape. Narrow travels the whole world writing his name, focusing on Europe. This crew on the corner is southwest, Mexico, wherever they get a spot. If you look at this whole wall, it's stories upon stories of different artists."
He was able to bring in artists like the 3D Crew that are known nationally because of his longevity on the scene.
"I'm first-generation in the graffiti art movement in Chicago. So I'm like pops," Nieves said. "I've been lucky enough to have the opportunity to organize smaller events so I've built a reputation. Artists know if I put my name behind it, it's going to be a great event."
Turan and her husband own the 17,000-square-foot Merge building, which they painted black to artists could paint over the whole exterior and the art would really pop off of a negative space.
"It's giving the artists a platform, a canvas and a voice," Turan said. "We never put parameters. Everyone knows and respects what should not be done but we don't put parameters. Express yourselves. Give yourself a voice and here's a canvas. It's a love fest of expressionism."
The office building that's home to several tenants like an arts education nonprofit has 12,000 square feet of exterior wall space that was completely splashed with a dozen murals. They even covered the windows with perforated adhesives that give the impression of being a solid surface on the outside while allowing light in and people to see out on the inside.
"The windows don't have to impede the artwork," she said. "This is the gateway to downtown Hammond. It's a wonderful welcome to the city. It's a building covered with beautiful art."
The goal is to transform downtown Hammond into an outdoor art gallery by hosting the Walls Festival annually. Each year, the festival will pick a new building to serve as a canvas for renowned artists from across the country.
Newly formed Arts Hammond Alliance aims to make downtown a canvas for murals
Maldonado painted the "4 Little Birds" mural on the front of the Merge building during the inaugural Merge Walls fest.
"It's an homage to my mom, my uncles and my cousin that passed away from COVID," he said. "I was thinking about what I was going to do and then 'Three Little Birds' came on. That's here spirit animal. It made me think about hummingbirds, and I thought that was perfect. It would be something lighthearted and nice for the community."
Traz Juarez, a fellow member of the legendary Crazy Indiana Style Artists from East Chicago who now has a studio in Pilsen and serves as the scenic artist on the "Chicago PD" television show, also took part. He painted an indigenous bead patch, which he freestyled with a firewater theme and gave a 3-D rendering.
He earlier painted the corn mural on the side of the Eat restaurant for the Arts on the Avenue event in downtown Hammond.
"I like that the art is starting to come this way," he said. "I'm doing an indigenous theme with my art right now just to bring awareness."
The artist Bone painted a safari-inspired mural on the back of the building.
"This is great for the city," he said. "There's a lot of support. It seems like a lot of people are loving it."
Omar74 created a mural with a bucket hat and a boom box to mark the 50th anniversary of hip-hop.
"I'm from Gary but this is still home. It's still the Region," he said. "It beats going to other cities. I get kind of jealous because they can appreciate what's going on in their cities where they live. This brings together the community. It's an educational tool. A lot of people always wonder how this gets put together and they can see it get put together. A lot of times people only see it when it's done. It's a good way to educate people who don't know too much about it. It's a good way to expose them to it."
Just formed in February, Arts Hammond Association is still putting together a slate of future programming. As a mission, it aims to promote, present, and support the arts in Hammond, making it a creative hub for Northwest Indiana.
"We specially formed to ensure art is part of the future in Hammond. That's our mission statement," Nieves said. "Every event we're doing, we want to make sure it's an AHA! moment. We want to do it at a scale and level of professionalism that lets everyone experience the creative platform in a way that they can enjoy it. The environment is super inclusive and diverse, in cultures, races and economic classes. This is a good opportunity for everybody to see that this is cool. Instead of experiences being wiped away with fear of going to a neighborhood in a community, we are showing this is possible in downtown Hammond. You can come to downtown Hammond."
It seeks to make the arts accessible to Hammond residents while putting Hammond on the map as an arts destination.
"It's building a sense of community," Turan said. "What makes everyone comfortable is bringing everyone together and making art accessible. People do shy away from galleries and museums. But we're making amazing, world-class art public 24/7. When you bring in the arts, everything else follows. It brings in the neighborhoods and creates a sense of community. It brings everyone outside their peripheral zone and into the city of Hammond to see what we have to offer."
It's looking to stage exhibitions, events, concerts and other creative projects.
"We want to be inclusive with the arts," Nieves said. "We have a DJ, the Towle Theater and Books, Bands & Brushes here. Visually, we're traveling our own lanes. But together we're creating a superhighway in the Region. This will help remove the silos and the competitive nature that does exist."
It plans to curate public art in the city, including sculptures, street art and murals.
"We're not just about visual arts," she said. "Anything that enriches us is art. Life isn't worth living if we don't have arts."