Brian Slattery Photos
Kotcher (aka Frenemy) and Bernblum at 162 James.
The latest mural from public art organization Site Projects is transforming a building in Fair Haven — just as the projects it’s connected to, from Save the Sound and the Mill River Trail, are hoping to transform the surrounding community’s relationship to the river nearby, and the nature all around them.
The mural is the work of artist Kristopher Kotcher, a.k.a. Frenemy, who got connected to Site Projects through Trish Loter, who co-owns Elm City Games with Matt Fantastic, who’s vice president of the board for Site Projects. Kotcher and Loter met as children in Texas and became friends. Both of them moved away — Loter eventually to New Haven and Kotcher to Malaysia, where he currently resides — but managed to stay in touch through social media. Along the way, Kotcher branched out from doing graffiti to working on murals and doing tattoo art, and recently published a children’s book called Kimbop Was Born To Explore!
“She showed Matt my stuff,” Kotcher said. Fantastic was taken with Kotcher’s visual style, colorful and playful with just enough edge, and sent examples of Kotcher’s work to the rest of the Site Projects board.
“We were really excited,” said Julie Bernblum, board chair of Site Projects. She explained that the organization had in mind a project done in connection with the work of Save the Sound, which is building a pocket park at the end of the block, and with the efforts of the Mill River Trail, which will soon connect to the park and let walkers hike north from there. “We’re trying to tap into that,” Bernblum said.
Site Projects also happened to “like the building,” Bernblum said. “We liked that it was facing a school” — the John S. Martinez Sea and Sky Magnet School, on James Street. The building is owned by Steve Snow of Connecticut Laminating, who was amenable to the project.
For Kotcher, the location of the building and its close proximity to the school and environmental projects made the guidelines for the mural clear. “It’s going to have a lot of nature — a lot of local wildlife. So I’ll have a horned owl on the back, a giant frog sitting on a stump, reading a book to trout. The rainbow trout, I’ve already painted,” he said. “I’m going to have an osprey sitting inside of its nest, because we know that ospreys nest nearby.” Thanks to a list Save the Sound provided of native species that will be planted in the park, Kotcher is depicting them in his mural as well. He’s incorporating his own style, and his own characters, which he’s been developing for decades. “I’m having them walk toward the trail,” he said, and toward a sign in the mural itself pointing pedestrians to the trailhead. “It’s a mix of what I do stylistically, and local wildlife.
Kotcher began work on the mural early last week and expects be finished, or very close to it, by Saturday, when the mural will be part of a featured event in the International Festival of Arts and Ideas, “Connecting Community to the River’s Natural Resources.” That free event will feature a guided tour by filmmaker Steve Hamm, creator of the documentary A River Speaks (see link above), about the Mill River and its connections to the communities around it.
The pocket park under construction.
“There will be a walk along the trail that will end in the pocket park, and then people will see the mural, and there’ll be some live painting, and we hope kids come as well,” Bernblum said.
“I’m planning to leave a bit of it unfinished,” Kotcher said, to allow eventgoers to see how it’s done.
Already, Kotcher said, people have been stopping to admire the mural, talk to him about what he’s doing, and every once in a while bring him coffee. “Especially for the kids, walking past this every day on the way to school changes the vibe,” he said. Kotcher has already met with several art classes from the Martinez School and is going to do more. He’s done workshops in the past, in Asia, about mural and character design, and “I love doing that kind of thing,” he said.
“People have been emailing us, thanking us, telling us how much they love it already,” Bernblum said.
The mural in Fair Haven is part of an ongoing effort across New Haven that has led to more and more murals being created on the walls of Elm City buildings. “My office is over in Ninth Square, where obviously there have been so many installations, so it’s been awesome,” Bernblum said. “Downtown gets so many projects, but we really want to try to bring it everywhere.”
Kotcher noted that he has been painting for 20 years and at the beginning “I never thought I was going to make money at it. It was just a fun thing to do. It’s pretty amazing that people have embraced it.” He can track the rise of his career to the growing acceptance of graffiti art as a form to celebrate. “It’s awesome to see people be able to do more with it and have more opportunities from it. When I see other people winning and getting good opportunities, I cheer them on,” Kotcher said. “It’s all about positive vibes.”
Frenemy’s mural is currently being painted at 162 James St. Visit A&I’s website for more information about the June 11 event centered on the river, trail, park, and mural.