Thanks for the tips. A tagger has vandalized the community-painted mural at Emma Schmitz Memorial Overlook. You can’t tell it from our photo – and we do our best to not give taggers more exposure by showing their “work” full on anyway – but the longest stretch of the mural has one huge tag across it, outlined rather than solid, in white paint. After going there to see it first hand Monday following multiple reader reports, we contacted artist Nalisha Estrellas, who led the mural painting last year. Here’s what she told us via email when we asked if she was aware of the vandalism and if the mural had a “graffiti-resistant coating”:
David, a local resident and the person who hired me to install it, let me know. He’s aware of my plans to repaint
Graffiti-resistant coating is very expensive – for that size wall it would cost approx $2,000 and according to my experienced mural Artist community it’s a waste of money because any time a mural with on it gets tagged, removing the spray paint leaves a “halo effect”. Not only that but it takes a lot of effort to scrub off the graffiti unless someone has a power washer. It takes less energy to repaint and I am working on that. … Please express my thanks to the community.
She is working to schedule when she’ll be able to repaint. As shown in our coverage last year, a multitude of community members helped paint it, including Lafayette Elementary students.