Often Seen Rarely Spoken, Russell

“This is all based around the Russell neighborhood. These murals are apart of an initiative and they wanted them all to be community-based. We did some research and went to community meetings and reached out to some people who live in the neighborhood on what would be good content. The neighborhood was coined, “Louisville’s Harlem” and it was one of Louisville’s first neighborhoods and still Louisville’s biggest neighborhood.

We wanted to depict the old school side, over here, with these two influential people from Russell. We have a streetcar, from the early 1900s, that they quit running in Louisville in the forties. We just went with a historic vibe with the gold and the fleur de lis and gave it a more classic feel.

On this side, we went with a real progressive feel with a more contemporary and new-age vibe. We want to honor the pioneers on one side but give inspiration on the other. We went with a quote that says, “The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.” We put a bunch of kids in grown-up job outfits. There are kids with astronaut and scientist outfits on. You know, you want to grow up and be so much. When you’re growing up, we want people to keep following their dreams and not give up.

We started this six days ago and interacting with the community has been sick, everybody’s been really receptive. The business owners around here have been giving us water for our supplies. All the youngsters are getting photos in front of it but everyone’s been receptive and there’s been zero negativity.

We learned this craft through the streets by painting graffiti. That was a big challenge. We’ve been to jail for doing this shit. We had to pay for doing this shit, instead of getting paid to do it. That took a decade-plus of learning. In the meantime, we were working normal jobs, too, and that’s a struggle. For creatives, it’s tough being pent up in the office, doing something that you don’t want to be doing. We even took a little bit of a hit in money to be able to pursue this. We’re only three years into this and our business isn’t quite where we want it, so that’s been a bit of a struggle. The struggle provides something good. It’s good to grit your teeth and chase that shit.

We have big goals and we’re not going to let shit get in our way. This mural is a step in the right direction for us, for Louisville, and the program that they have going on. But our goals are much bigger. We’re just hungry. Painting in this fashion is addicting. We want to be bigger and better.

I had people in my life tell me that I could be anything that I wanted to be. It’s tough to believe it but you really can be whatever you want in this world. You just have to chase it and put in the time. You can be and do whatever you want.” - Often Seen Rarely Spoken, Russell