QV Student Uses Graffiti to Create Mural at the Sewickley Community Center

A 16-year-old Sewickley teen who uses graffiti as a form of creative expression recently translated his art skills into a colorful mural at the .

It took Blake Irwin, a sophomore at , about three and a half hours and a dozen cans of spray paint to complete the bright visual on two garage doors. He looked at a picture of Pittsburgh and sketched out the depiction of the city’s steel bridges, before translating that picture free-hand style at the center.

 “It’s supposed to be a more cartoonish representation of Pittsburgh,” Blake said.

Art comes naturally for the teen, who decided to use his talent as part of his personal project that all Quaker Valley sophomores are required to complete.  A few years ago, he said his youth pastor at Ingomar United Methodist in Wexford was drawing graffiti and showed him how to do it. That was in 2009.

“I just kind of built up from there,” Blake said.

He got in touch with , and in turn was put in touch with the community center.

Jessica Revtai, outreach coordinator at Sweetwater, said Blake contacted her back in the fall to work with him and help him find a space.

“He had a very impressive portfolio of graffiti work and I enjoyed his enthusiasm for this project,” Revtai said.

Autumn Redcross, a coordinator at the center, assisted in getting the Sewickley Community Center board to approve the project, making it a joint community effort.

“Blake has been very proactive with this project and he is a very talented artist. I’m happy I had the chance to work with him and see his ideas come to life at the community center,” Revtai said.

Blake met with Redcross about two weeks ago at the community center to show his designs and get an idea of the proportions he would need.

A week ago today, he completed the project while his mother took photos.

Redcross said the community center welcomed Blake's work, a form of art that she said stems from the subculture of hip hop. 

"It looks great," she said.

Graffiti sometimes gets a bad rap as a form of vandalism associated with urban streets and gang activity. Even the artists themselves are looked upon as law-breaking citizens. But the art form has influenced graphic design and has been featured in galleries with socially-conscious and passionate designers behind the work.

Blake said he knows there are negative connotations associated with grafitti, but he does it for the art rather than the culture behind it. He said there are a few other graffiti artists in too. His initial idea was to try to get a legal wall somewhere in Sewickley where artists could to do graffiti.

“A space where all the graffiti artists around Sewickley could go and do their art legally, where it could be considered an art form more than just vandalism,” he said.

Blake said he is currently working on a stencil to use that he can spray paint at the bottom of the Pittsburgh mural as his signature, but he’s still mulling a few ideas.

Redcross said Blake’s talents have caught the eye of another local venue interested in having similar work done.

Blake said he never imagined any of this would happen.

 “I just kind of drew it to amuse myself. I never thought it would turn into anything, which is kind of cool that it has.”