Make It Your Own Mural Fest Announces Artists

Organizers Seeking Boost from Region for Crowdfunding Campaign

FORT WAYNE, Ind. – The Northeast Indiana Regional Partnership, in collaboration with Arts United of Greater Fort Wayne, Inc., announced today KEY DETAIL and Tobias Studios are two of the muralists that have been selected for Make It Your Own Mural Fest, happening September 8-18 across Northeast Indiana’s 11 counties. Additional artists, as well as the counties in which their art will be featured, will be announced in the weeks leading up to the festival.

Internationally-renowned KEY DETAIL, of New York City, is a husband-wife team. Andrei Krautsou and Julia Yu-Baba are mural artists who also work with paintings and illustrations. A native of Belarus, KEY DETAIL has been active on the art scene since the early 2000s. KEY DETAIL has been creating mural art for more than ten years and has installed murals all over Europe, Asia and U.S.

“It is very exciting to be a part of this project because this art will be inspiring for many people. It is very important that communities get beautiful art that inspires locals and attracts tourists. It helps the community to become stronger. It teaches the young generation that art creation is a magical and interesting process,” said Yu-Baba. “The goal is to create an environment in which any individual can feel welcomed and valued. My objective is to inspire those who see the mural to look more carefully at the world around them, to discover beauty.”

Prolific regional artist, Jerrod Tobias, and his wife, Kara, started Tobias Studios in 2015 in Fort Wayne as a working art studio on their one-acre homestead. Tobias Studios is responsible for numerous murals across Fort Wayne, including the mural on East Columbia Street near Three Rivers Apartments, the one depicting Native American folklore on the side of the Brass Rail along Sturgis Street, and rainbow trout at Hop River Brewing Co., just to name a few. In the past 5 years, the artists have hosted art camps, workshops, curated exhibitions and produced some of the largest murals in Northeast Indiana.

“Public art helps give voice to a region’s culture and community. It provides an opportunity to share perspectives and expresses the character of the community’s people. There is something vastly rewarding about making public work in the community you live in. It exhibits a vested interest in defining a sense of place,” said Jerrod Tobias. “I really believe I was born to be a mural painter. It gives me a greater sense of purpose than any job I’ve ever had.”

Make It Your Own Mural Fest is a deeply collaborative project. Each county developed a county steering committee, secured mural locations with approval from property owners and appointed jurors from each county to select the mural concepts. Each jury consisted of county representatives, regional artists and a representative from the Regional Mural Fest Committee. The 11 county-level juries were responsible for selecting the top design concept without any knowledge of the artist. The selected proposals were chosen based on five criteria: alignment with festival goals, alignment with county toolkit, use of wall space, artist’s previous work and proposal quality.

Alex Hall, founder of Art This Way and owner of AH Public Spaces Consulting, led the jury process for selecting the artists.

“It was challenging for the jury to choose just 11 designs from the talented pool of applicants. Make It Your Own Mural Fest’s goal is to create 11 visual representations of unique regional attributes and highlight Northeast Indiana as a forward-thinking and creative place,” said Hall. “We could not be more pleased to welcome KEY DETAIL and Tobias Studios to participate in Make It Your Own Mural Fest.”

Currently, the Regional Partnership is working with Arts United to raise money for Make It Your Own Mural Fest through the Amplify Art! crowdfunding campaign, powered by 3Rivers Federal Credit Union. The campaign ends on July 11 and has raised over 70 percent of the $33,000 fundraising goals. Anyone can donate to the campaign by visiting www.artsunited.org/amplify.

Make It Your Own Mural Fest is an innovative, creative activation of the Make It Your Own brand intended to enhance the region’s efforts to drive talent attraction, talent retention and tourism by investing in quality of place assets and public art.

The regional mural festival concept, the first of its kind in the state, builds on the quality of place efforts accelerated by the Regional Cities Initiative, growing regional pride and garnering significant attention and exposure nationally.

Over 11 days, artists will create 11 high-quality murals—one in each of the 11 counties of Northeast Indiana. The murals all will be unveiled on the same day, with celebrations and events taking place all over the region throughout the duration of the festival to recognize the artists and the communities.

The final unveiling event for the Make It Your Own Mural Fest will be held in partnership with the Downtown Improvement District (DID) and Art This Way Fort Wayne at the Art Crawl event on Friday, Sept. 18, near The Landing and Promenade Park in downtown Fort Wayne. The event will be encouraging social distancing and other COVID-19 safety best practices.

Make It Your Own Mural Fest is supported through sponsorships from 3Rivers Federal Credit Union, Ambassador Enterprises, NIPSCO and the NiSource Foundation, Canterbury School, Avangrid Foundation, Parkview Health and media sponsor WPTA. Activities are also made possible in part by the Arts United of Greater Fort Wayne, and the Indiana Arts Commission, which receives support from the State of Indiana and the National Endowment for the Arts.

To learn more, visit the website at www.NEIMuralFestival.com.

About the Northeast Indiana Regional Partnership 
The Northeast Indiana Regional Partnership’s mission is to build, market and sell Northeast Indiana to increase business investment. Founded in 2006, the public-private partnership strives to build a globally competitive region. The Partnership’s Vision 2030 framework supports collaborative regional efforts to increase per capita income, population growth and educational attainment by focusing on business attraction, talent attraction and talent development. The Partnership represents 11 member counties: Adams, Allen, DeKalb, Huntington, Kosciusko, LaGrange, Noble, Steuben, Wabash, Wells and Whitley. For more information, visit www.neindiana.com. 

About Arts United of Greater Fort Wayne, Inc. 

Arts United of Greater Fort Wayne, Inc. is a non-profit united arts fund and local arts agency that serves the communities of northeast Indiana by fueling the momentum of more than 70 arts, culture and quality of life initiatives each year. Arts United’s strategic investments position arts and culture organizations to achieve higher levels of excellence and quality, to improve access to the arts for all community members and to support regional priorities for growth and development. For more information, visit www.artsunited.org. 

MEDIA CONTACT:

Kate Virag
Vice President of Marketing & Strategic Communications
Northeast Indiana Regional Partnership
260.414.2431
kate@NEIndiana.com