Broken Crow time-lapse: Sprinting lion

Broken Crow Stencil Mural - 1 Day Time lapse - Lion Man from The BFC on Vimeo.

Nice time lapse of Mike Fitzsimmons and John Grider, AKA Broken Crow, installing their lion-man stencil mural in downtown Minneapolis. Via l'etoile.

Sprinting lion: New Broken Crow mural

On the Merit Printing building in downtown Minneapolis.

Video: Broken Crow and Over Under's Shuga Records mural

The much-blogged mural at Shuga Records is now complete, giving me time to edit footage from its creation. Here's the result. Special thanks to John Grider and Mike Fitzsimmons of Broken Crow and Erik Burke of Over Under.

Broken Crow + Over Under mural: End of Day 4

With just a few finishing touches to go on Wednesday, the Shuga Records mural by Broken Crow and Over Under is nearly complete. See the entire process on Flickr. (Video and time-lapse to come.)

Broken Crow + Over Under mural: Day 4

After four days of work, the mural at Shuga Records in Northeast Minneapolis is just about done. Over Under's Erik Burke is back in Brooklyn, and Broken Crow's John Grider and Mike Fitzsimmons are taking a day off before doing some final touch-ups. It was an amazing experience seeing this team work and watching a community coalesce around them. I'll post a full shot of the mural -- and hopefully a time-lapse of the process, plus some video -- when it's complete. But for now, here's a few shots of the team (more here).

Mike Fitzsimmons

Erik Burke

John Grider

North Minneapolis Mural: Juxtaposition Arts & Asian Media Access

I don't want to get down on my 'hood, but things in North Minneapolis have been scary lately. In the past few weeks, we've seen a 12-year-old girl shot in the head by a stray bullet, a DHL driver shot, a school bus driver grazed, a 17-year-old boy shot, to name but a few. But too often our neighborhood gets defined by these events instead of the good work the other 99 percent of us are doing.

So a huge shout out to Asian Media Access, their ambitious media programming, and the new building they're renovating on Plymouth Avenue near Sheridan. To match the revitalization going on inside the former church, they invited Juxtaposition Arts' advanced mural class to create a mural along the east side of the building. (I'm planning on talking to AMA's executive director Ange Huang and Juxtaposition's Roger Cummings, so check back for more.)

Apparently it's just a first step toward a comprehensive Multi-Arts Complex that'll include space for performance and film screening, offices, a noodle shop, and a training center. (Donate here.)

The project and the mural are a welcome dose of color -- and optimism -- for the northside.