From Graffiti Spot to Community Art Project

For several years now, the retaining wall in back of Hunters Woods Fellowship House has been a magnet for graffiti.

The Fellowship Square Foundation will pay to scrub it off. Then it returns.  

But George Davies, the acting executive director of the Fellowship Square Foundation - the nonprofit that operates housing for the elderly at Hunters Woods and Lake Anne - has a solution that may help beautify the wall, deter further crime and engage area youth in a more positive art project.

Fellowship Square recently was approved for a Fairfax County grant that will enable them to sponsor a project "Creating Art From the Ugly" this fall.

Fellowship Square will team with teens from the Teen Center at the YMCA Fairfax County Reston to make a mural of their own on the retaining wall, which backs up to the Reston Association bike path.

The RA DRB gave preliminary approval to the project earlier this week.

"We are trying to harness their creative energy," Davies said of the teens. "If you read the literature on graffiti, if you engage the peers of those who do the action, you can have an impact."

The proposed project will have five 10 x 4 foot panels and 10 10 x 6 foot panels. It will depict a sort of "circle of life in Reston," sketching out life here from youth to senior years.

The panels will be designed by staff at the Teen Center, says Davies. He hopes to get seniors at Fellowship House involved in the project too.

And when the project is completed, he hopes to continue to engage the teens by having them monitor the retaining wall for further vandalism. As an extra precaution, the wall will be coated with anti-graffiti paint.

"The retaining wall looks out to the bike path," he said. "We don't always see what is on it. Now the community will be more involved."

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