Bakpak Durden remembers a time when being a painter was something that didn’t interest them.
The Detroit artist mostly focused on photography and graphite works, but they reluctantly started dabbling in the medium about seven years ago when a friend offered up her paints.
“She gave me a crash course in painting in oil, and I just went from there,” Durden said. “For some reason, I came up with this excuse to not do it because it takes too long to dry, but that’s why I like doing it now. There’s a whole system involved, like creating a puzzle within the execution of creating a piece. That’s what’s fun to me.”
Now, Durden is known for their murals around the country, beautifying buildings in places as far away as Oklahoma, Florida and Hawaii. In Detroit, their pieces can be seen outside of buildings for M&D Pharmacy, ZAB Cultural Art Collective and the Second Grace UMC Farmer’s Market. Next week, Durden will be working on their latestpiece for Murals in the Market.
The art festival is returning for its 10th year, starting on Monday, bringing a week-long celebration of live mural installations, artist talks, exhibitions and parties. And after two years in Islandview, Murals in the Market is moving back to its original home at Eastern Market. Durden will be one of 17 Detroit artists painting murals around the neighborhood.
Murals in the Market has been a long-time partnership between art publisher 1XRUN and the Eastern Market Development Corporation, said Jesse Cory, co-founder of 1XRUN. Earlier this year, the two organizations began discussing the 10th anniversary of the festival, with the corporation mentioning that other companies would be interested in funding the event. Some of those funders include the Gilbert Family Foundation, General Motors, The Kresge Foundation and the Hudson-Webber Foundation.
“It’s very expensive supplying the paint, and then during the last several festivals, the artists have been getting a stipend for their work,” Cory said. “This year, with the support of our funders, we’re able to cover all the expenses of the festival, and all the artists get compensated.”
A week of creativity and fun
Cory got the idea of bringing a mural festival to Detroit several years ago after he and his wife Roula David organized and participated in similar festivals around the world, such as World Wide Walls. The two, along with 1XRUN co-founder Dan Armand, began talking to former Eastern Market CEO Dan Carmody about the idea.
“He (Carmody) came to us and he was like, ‘You guys are traveling around and doing these mural festivals. What do you guys think about bringing one to Detroit?’” Cory recalled. “And we were like, ‘Great, where do you get the money?’ He says, ‘Oh, we’ll find it.’”
The first Murals in the Market took place in September 2015, featuring large-scale murals from more than 45 local and national artists, such as Ryan C. Doyle, Sydney G. James, Fel 3000ft and Jonny Alexander.
The 2025 festival will kick features a meet and greet with this year’s artists at 9 p.m. Tuesday at UFO Bar in Corktown. All the artists this year are Michigan-based, Cory said. Some of those artists include Amy Fisher Price, Ed Irmen, Ijania Cortez, Kelly Golden, Sheefy Mcfly and Tony WHLGN.
Artists have full creative freedom to paint whatever they want as long as the murals don’t show guns, blood, or nudity, Cory said.
Other events happening throughout the week include an artist talk at 7 p.m. Wednesday at the 1XRUN Warehouse in Eastern Market. Called “The Stories Behind the Murals,” the event will feature Cory, David and Armand talking about their experiences running the festival.
On Thursday, Murals in the Market will host Eastern Market After Dark. The 6 p.m. event, produced by Design Core Detroit, is a signature event of the Detroit Month of Design. It will feature art activations, vendors, food trucks and gallery pop-ups. New this year is a 10-year retrospective exhibit on the artist-in-residence program 1XRUN runs during the Movement Festival.
“We’ve brought all of the art and the murals that we’ve done down there,” Cory said. “We’re printing some of the murals so people can see them, and we have a lot of art pieces that artists have painted. It’s 10 different artists, 10 different art installations. They’re all inside the new (1XRUN) warehouse, which we’ve never used before on Winder Street. I think it’s going to be the showstopper.”
Eastern Market After Dark is part of Detroit Month of Design, the annual citywide festival organized by Design Core Detroit.
“They’ve (Design Core Detroit) made it a month where we reflect on our combined creativity and Detroit’s creative spirit,” Cory said.
When Eastern Market After Dark wraps up at 11 p.m., people can head over to the afterparty at Cory and David’s record shop/nightclub Spotlite until 2 a.m. Other events taking place over the weekend include an exhibit Friday from Tony WHLGN at Spotlite, a kids’ art workshop on Saturday afternoon at the 1XRUN Warehouse and a closing party Saturday night at Spotlite. On Sunday, attendees can take a walking or biking tour around Eastern Market with RiDetroit from 12-4 p.m.
Preserving history
In addition to the festivities, 1XRUN is in the process of restoring three murals. That includes Chicago-born artist Henry Brantley’s mural from the first year of the festival, along with Zak Meers’ “Welcome to Eastern Market” mural made during the festival’s third year and Scott Hocking’s 2018 piece “Seventeen Shitty Mountains.”
“Murals can get in a condition where they’re flaking or they’ve maybe run its course,” Cory said. “There are visual esthetics that are valuable.”
When it comes to the new murals, Durden wouldn’t say much about what it would look like, but said the installation will be more in line with their studio work, which is more intimate. Durden’s mural will be located at 2521 Riopelle and they said they hope to have it completed by the end of Murals in the Market on Sept. 22.
“I’m excited to get started because I’m going to be trying some new things,” they said. “This festival is close to home and I get to hang out with all my friends and paint, you know?”
Editor’s note: The Kresge Foundation and the Hudson-Webber Foundation are funders of BridgeDetroit. See the full list here.