[MUSIC] I think I'm gonna keep these.

[MUSIC] I still have my sixth grade art trophy, so I'm gonna put these next to it.

[MUSIC] This is kind of emotional being here, seeing ten years pass.

My first mural survived all this time.

It's nice to remember where everything started, you know, to humble you.

It's like all these different concepts collaged over, very amateur, very beginner.

I used to joke that I wanted this to be painted over.

Now I'm here, I'm kind of like, yeah, it's kind of nice to see the progression of me as an artist.

I almost cried.

[Speaking Spanish] Most people think of AC, they think about the casinos, or the beach, or the tourism.

There's like a whole other world there that people completely don't even acknowledge, which is like the locals.

A lot of changes are visible in Atlantic City.

We have vacant spaces.

People look at that as a blank canvas.

We also look at some of the walls that are available as places for us to reflect our creative consciousness, to champion artists and art.

As humans, we definitely absorb our surroundings.

I got into community arts because it was wholesome, because it was very, very real.

We want to make sure that people can have some exposure to our city culture.

People are excited to see more murals and just supporting the artists and the organizations that make it happen.

[ MUSIC ] Public art was my first experience just experiencing art in general.

Like, I lived in Miami when I was young, so like I remember driving down the highway and just seeing the back of buildings, like covered in graffiti and like all these colors.

I moved to Jersey when I was 16 with my family.

Going from like a place where predominantly my culture is like celebrated and then going to Jersey, I was in the outskirts of Atlantic City, a place called Mays Landing.

And it was like a little bit of a culture shock for me.

I felt a little ostracized too.

That was a really hard time for me back then.

There was a period where I didn't want to make art.

I honestly felt the most comfortable when I started going to AC.

It reminded me of something I was like nostalgic and I missed.

So I went to school for fine arts painting and I got to experience seeing people create murals.

I decided I don't want to do gallery stuff, like I just want to be a muralist.

I also was connecting with artists in Atlantic City who were from AC.

There was just a lot of art happening in such a small city.

That really was really special.

My first like art community really did blossom in AC, like more than anywhere else.

The Atlantic City Arts Foundation is a community arts organization and a public arts movement.

Our organization had always wanted to make 100 murals in Atlantic City.

When I was offered the 100th mural, it was such an honor.

They knew my history with the city, they've seen me grow as an artist.

Atlantic City is where I started.

That is where a lot of people gave me a shot.

I was like, "I need to make a piece as a thank you to Atlantic City."

It was incredibly meaningful to bring back an artist who was from the region, had participated in some of our earliest mural efforts, and had really incubated her talents and then had achieved certain amount of acclaim elsewhere and was able to bring their talents back to Atlantic City as a demonstration of their journey as an artist.

(upbeat music) So I'll paint these in my studio and I can work with multiple.

I have like two murals I've worked in here that I'm waiting for the sites to be ready so I can install it.

Depending on how large the piece is, it goes up pretty quick.

I feel like once we started painting, it was smooth sailing.

Little things would be like, working around a cylinder object is pretty difficult.

So I had someone on the floor, like, kind of guiding me to make sure it looked pretty even.

This is the 100th mural, it's a big milestone.

And when you're in the art world, sometimes certain things get to you.

Like, you know, you don't always want to tell people you're from Atlantic City.

Like, I'm proud to say I'm like from Jersey.

- When I was thinking about the theme, I came to the space just to get a sense of it.

And I did notice already a theme of florals.

I later came to find out too, about this restaurant that the chef, his mother plants all these flowers that are native to New Jersey.

And I got to talk to her and she's like, "Yeah, like, you know, we're planning this because, like, the monarch butterflies are coming through and we want to make sure we have, like, their native plant, the milkweed."

I included the florals and, like, sometimes things just fall into place.

The plants were really blossoming, seeing butterflies just fly over you.

There was one that was like hanging out with me the whole time, which was super special for me.

My sisters and my parents were immigrants, my neighbors, friends, so that butterfly symbolizes migration.

[ MUSIC ] We did have some fans, the Recon Poppies, but I think it was Jose, and he said he would watch the mural for us and make sure nothing happens to it.

Michael, one of the chefs here, was giving us a spread of delicious food.

And I'm like, "Here's a sandwich."

I had a mural once where they bought me hoagies.

I thought I was living the high life.

And then they came out with oysters.

I was like, "What the?"

All of it was covered in paint.

We're very fortunate enough to have the 100th mural on our building in Atlantic City done by Manny, an incredible artist.

It was really nice seeing Michael again, because I'm like, "Hey, I remember we had to build a scaffold, and neither, like, you're the chef, I'm the artist," and we're like, "Neither one of us had to build a scaffold."

It was just me and Michael, like, literally, only in Atlantic City.

Only Atlantic City.

Most cities in New Jersey face a certain number of challenges, each of them unique.

We're all working together to promote the life of the city.

When you're not a tourist and you're, like, here with the community, you really see them trying to make the city better.

It's my job to make sure people see those things, because I care about the world we live in.

I'm trying to leave it better than the way I found it.

That is not a job I take lightly.

I'll chat with them, ask them what they think about the piece, like anything that's missing.

Come in knowing that there are people who live in the area that come by every day, making sure that I'll make a piece that highlights the people here.

You have to kind of let go of the ego a little bit because you're entering someone else's space so it's no longer what you want, it's like what do the people want to see.

They know that there's an artist here that's listening.

It just hits different for them and me.

I don't even put like anti-graffiti sealer because I just know, I'm like no one's going to touch it.

They're going to respect it.

And it has, for the most part, has always been like that.

When I was a fine art major, it was just me and the canvas.

And that could be great, too, but there's something about the involvement of others.

It's like that moment of pause.

Maybe you'll see a parent and a child stop for a moment off their cell phones, just looking at the art and like very, very healing.

- Art has a tremendous capacity to bring people together.

Mural arts in particular are a great capstone to show the efforts of an artist, an organization, a neighborhood, to express their values, their talents.

- You don't have to pay anyone to see public art.

You could just walk in any space and just experience it.

Something nice about that openness.

Murals are incredibly accessible to people to experience.

And then to celebrate as a broader community of residents and artists, that progress that we have made just reflect the true creative spirit of an individual artist, are beginning to shape the city itself as we kind of reimagine places and spaces that we all inhabit here.

Art after a while, when you release it, it's not yours anymore.

Whether people use this site to take photos in front of or to leave their trash cans.

Like this is for them.

The art is just part of the space, part of the ecosystem now.

- It's a feeling of hope.

People connecting the dots that like the value that comes from creating art, like what that does to a neighborhood, what that does to the area.

I like to think that people who are from Atlantic City are like, look what happens when you give people resources that are from this area.

We made it to 100, but there will be like 100 more, and then 100 more.

Because of that grit that the people here have.

It's like a reflection back of who they are.

Always dreaming, always growing.

and seeing what happens.

[MUSIC PLAYING]