For decades, the alleyway beside 63 North Pleasant St. in Amherst was something of a battleground for local graffiti artists and law enforcement. Today, those illicit brushstrokes have been officially deputized into the town’s cultural fabric.
Through a new partnership between the Amherst Business Improvement District and local property owners, the once-grey stucco walls have been transformed by an artist into a permanent vibrant mural honoring both the town’s counterculture roots and its inclusive future.
It was in April 2016 that two teenagers, a Belchertown boy and a Wendell girl, were arrested early one morning on charges of tagging property, after leaving the image of a black, white, and silver cat on the side of The Monkey Bar/ Bistro 63, 63 North Pleasant St. Though they tried to run away, the girl was caught with six cans of spray paint and a flashlight.
Over the years, the cat has been joined by several other images, such as a sunglass-wearing monkey on a tree limb, appearing to hold three fish on a line dangling below; buildings on the three college campuses in town; and the head of a buck circled by the phrase “act now, today, because tomorrow is too late, join extinction rebellion.”
The numerous elements on the wall were recently formalized into a cohesive mural by Easthampton artist Sharon Leshner, who also goes by Sharona Color and is the artistic director for The Color Collaborative, after she was commissioned by the Amherst Business Improvement District to do the alleyway revitalization with permission from building owner Rasif Rafiq.
All of what had been on the wall, some worn from years of being subjected to weather, was maintained, but the tan color of the wall was brightened with vibrant colors and rainbows, and new graphics, like the phrase “I love it here” repeated several times.
In a statement put on Facebook, Leshner wrote that help was provided by two assistants, Nina Levison and Nellie Marshall-Torres, to give the mural more prominence.
“Creating this piece was a really interesting challenge,” Leshner wrote. “My artistic goal was to amplify the original street art and graffiti and create a cohesive, colorful and uplifting piece.”
With the monkey, a nod to the restaurant, Leshner also found creativity to address an issue with the building’s wall.
“There were also some interesting inherent challenges, like finding a way to incorporate a persistent water stain, which I turned into a monkey spilling wine!”
Even with the new layers of paint and touching up all the images, Leshner kept the original spirit intact. Leshner also describes the final product as having a “funkadelic ’70s vibe to match the venue’s queer and BIPOC-affirming, inclusive dance energy.”
The alleyway is among bare walls in Amherst that have often drawn graffiti, with possibly the most iconic being the phrases “Save the Drake” and “For Willy, for humanity” written in white spray paint on the west side of the red brick Amherst Cinema building in the mid 1980s. That graffiti references the former Drake hotel, closed in 1985, and which had included the upstairs The Village Inn bar and the Rathskeller tavern, where Willie Whitfield worked as a bartender for more than 25 years.
Those phrases are now immortalized, in neon, in the lobby of the Drake performance venue at 44 North Pleasant St.
Outside the Drake is another new art piece that the Amherst BID also commissioned, a ceramic tile mural completed by Judith Inglese of Leverett. That piece is affixed to a wall at the entrance to the performance venue.
Amherst BID Executive Director John Page highlighted both works of art at the annual luncheon in the fall.
“The BID has been supportive of facilitating and underwriting of both projects along with private property owners and donors,” Page said.
The mural on the alleyway of Bistro 63, Page said, began as one of the downtown clean-up projects, to touch up paint or remove graffiti to create a more vibrant and welcoming environment.
“Here, after a conversation with owner Rasif Rafiq of Bistro 63, we embraced the street art, cleaned it up and created an opportunity for public art and expression,” Page said.
Leshner’s work was familiar in town, after completing an expansive mural project, Imagined Worlds, at Amherst Regional High School near the Summit Academy entrance.
Meanwhile, Inglese’s latest piece is titled “The Song of Earth Has Many Different Chords,” a name inspired by the poem “Listening” by Amy Lowell and celebrating music, art and culture in Amherst.
That project, Page said, was made possible by contributions from Florence Bank, Greenfield Northampton Cooperative Bank and the Amherst BID, and was facilitated in partnership with the Drake and the Roberts Group, which owns the building.