Quartyard – East Village, San Diego

Big projects take big vision… and sometimes, a serendipitous spark to set them off.

One night, at a meeting of the minds, we found ourselves sharing a few pints with legendary artist, Kelly Graval, better known as RISK.

We asked him if he would like to paint our office container or the 15 foot wood wall. He calmly responded:

“I would rather paint that building.”

He pointed to Alpha Square, a 6,400 square foot building facing Quartyard.

Our eyes collectively gleamed, the ‘Aha!’ moment had arrived, and the rest is history…

Well, sorta… check out a full time lapse of Risk’s work.

Full timelapse of Risk mural piece | Video Produced by: Javier Luna – Rapid Eye Media

We set into motion a plan to make the vision a reality, an activation unlike any we have ever taken on. This is what it was all about!

It was near the end of the December holiday season. Rain pittered from the containers, and daily morale slowly tapered as we set a record for the most rained out days in Quartyard history.

Looking to a brighter day, we decided to hunker down and commit to turning the mural idea into a reality.

We were going to PAINT THAT WALL.

We chose April for three key reasons: Quartyard’s birthday is in April, it gave us enough time to create integral community partnerships, and it was the launch of Arts, Culture & Creativity Month in California.

We view our community as a premier city for arts & culture in the state of California; this initiative would be a contribution to our great city and our evolving East Village neighborhood.

We identified key partners, namely, The East Village Association. We aligned the vision and together, we rallied community leaders and businesses to graciously donate funds to help produce the block party event.

The next step was to look to the blossoming and talented creators of our city: local breweries, San Diego musicians, small businesses, and local artists to participate at the block party. We had all the pieces in the right place.

Quartyard Block Party 2019
photo: Javier Juna of Rapid Eye Media

The day came and went like a flash, almost 2,000 guests from near and far came to support our block party. Numerous challenges, set backs, and doubts arose during the execution of the activation. In the times of doubt our team rallied around a quote that we found during the planning process:

“The greatness of a community is most accurately measured by the compassionate actions of its members.”
Coretta Scott King

Art has the incredible power to inspire our everyday lives. And as our city grows, so too does our commitment to provide a canvas to our creative community.

Cheers to health, happiness, and East Village.