RICHMOND, Va. -- On Richmond's Canal Walk Tuesday morning, volunteer Meredith Marks got to work, dipping a paint roller in cement-colored primer, then rolling it over the worn walls that once showcased some of the city's most iconic murals.
Roll after roll, she removed the remnants of an art piece filled with bright neon colors, her tennis shoes matching what's left of the artwork she carefully covered up.
Her art background is limited, but she's happy to help.
"I color with my four-year-old. That's my background with art."
For the first time since 2012, when Richmond held its first-ever Street Art Festival there, the walls along the Haxall Canal will be a fresh slate of brownish-gray, a blank canvas for new Richmond artists to show their stuff in this year's festival.
"It's like a fresh start. It feels good. Because you know something pretty is going up. It's just the beginning," Marks said.
It's a goodbye that's easy for some, but harder for others, like the festival's co-founder, Ed Trask.
"The overwhelming fact is that I'm really sad and depressed to see these murals go away," Trask said while shoveling dirt away from the base of one of the murals being covered up. "It was a lot of hard work and a lot of my close friends put up some of this work. Oh my gosh, I didn't realize it was going to impact me that much. I'm trying to busy myself with some of the grunt work that has to get done."
As the murals disappeared under the primer, Jacob Hollingsworth looked on.
"They're gone, but I think there will be something amazing that will take its place and it'll honor the original works that were here," he said.
While looking at the change unfolding before him, Hollingsworth introduced himself to Hamilton Glass, a street artist who got his start at the first festival in 2012 and who sketched his upcoming piece on the far left side of the wall.
"I'm one of those people who's been very adamant about changing the murals here, not because, you know, you're painting over my piece. One of the first pieces I've done, but I know how much further we've come as a city," Glass said.
At the festival's inception, many of the artists were not local to Richmond. This year, Glass said, is different.
"It was very few artists here that could pull off something like that. And now there are over 100 entries of artists here that can do that. It's just amazing," Glass said.
"It's other artists painting over art, instead of somebody coming over here, you know, a corporation coming over and wiping y'all out and saying, 'Here you go, start over,'" Hollingsworth responded.
The new paintings, Glass said, will be more of a reflection of Richmond's art scene today.
"Art, in my opinion, is one of those things, especially public art, is one of those things that should be like the thermostat to a city or like the community," Glass said.
Though it's hard for Trask to watch the change unfold, he said it's a necessary new chapter in the story of this iconic art spot.
"All these murals have these cool little storylines in them, and I'm really hoping the next round of murals get the same kind of storylines. That's why this whole inclusive festival is about seeing the first brush mark go on, and the last one go up at the end," Trask said. "We're so afraid of change. But it needs to happen sometimes."
