Six artists, three weeks, three shipping containers, one Muralthon. Six new murals mark a step forward for Muralgarten, a unique destination that will combine public art and native plantings adjacent to The Shirt Factory in Glens Falls. The vision of Eric Unkauf (owner of The Shirt Factory) with the support of a board including Tom Myott, Hannah Williams, Kendra Farstad, and Matthew Martindale, Muralgarten seeks to give artists the creative freedom to paint what they want, in the style that they want.
We’re excited to introduce you to another one of the talented artists behind Muralthon’s six murals, Jade Warrick, whose spray painted mural sits opposite Rock Hill Bakehouse!
Tell us about yourself!
I’m from Los Angeles, California. I lived there for the majority of my childhood, and then I ended up in Houston, Texas and spent about eight years there. After that I moved to Albany so that I could be with my grandmother and care for her while she healed from an illness. She’s since gotten better, but I ended up really liking it here. I currently live in Troy. It’s a little cold for me, but at the end of the day, this place was the most supportive of me being an artist, which I really like.
On Becoming an Artist
I would consider myself a visual designer and strategic developer. I got into art when I was really young. My mother, father, and close family members are artists, so I grew up around art. I think there was a natural genetic component to it, but my family definitely fostered it.
I have seven siblings, and we grew up poor. We couldn’t afford to spare funds on Pokemon cards or even a Monopoly board. So we used to just make those ourselves. We would make our own Pokemon cards, and I would draw the little creatures and their stats. I think that really inspired me and motivated me to create art. From there, I started making my own comic books and then I just stuck with it because I was good at it.
I went to college for Business and Marketing, and it took going into that field and not being happy with it to realize I should’ve focused on my art instead. Once I realized that, I took it further and realized I wanted to focus on art with other people as well, which is why I got into youth mural programming and youth programming in general. I want kids to have an easier path to creating art professionally than I did. It’s what motivated me to start my program Amplified Voices with my best friend Eugene O’Neill, where we just teach kids how to mural and give them access to art techniques, but also teach them wellness through art, like meditation, movement circles, and that kind of thing.
I feel like my purpose on this planet is to give access to others, not necessarily to inspire them, but to help them learn to inspire themselves.
On Inspiration
The inspiration behind this particular mural was based on the artists in this project being able to paint whatever we wanted to. A lot of times you’re asked to make a very specific thing, and I think that’s why a lot of us felt good about this project.
With this mural I wanted to focus on spray paint because I’ve only spray painted three other times before and this allowed me the opportunity to practice. There wasn’t too much other inspiration besides me freestyling. A lot of my art tends to be very graphic, colorful, and cartoony, so I just wanted to work with some color and paint unapologetically.
I have to give all of my praises to Hannah and everyone involved in this project. This is one of my favorite projects I’ve worked on because of that freedom and because of the support. They really did this in a very equitable way for the artists and that’s rare to see.
On Community
I always say, it’s the community aspect of art that makes it thrive and flourish. The more isolated and insular we are, the worse it is for everyone. If we all work together and we’re on the same team, we can give each other more opportunities. It’s then that you see the shifting behavior of business owners, building owners, and developers in terms of acceptance and excitement around public art.
