👋🏼 Hello Hamilton
Back in 2015, Paul Bradley and Charlotte Isaac set out to bring Hamilton’s creativity out from behind closed doors - and onto some very big walls.
It started with 11 artists, 10 walls and one weekend. Today, more than 100 murals are dotted around Kirikiriroa. Surely you’ve spotted a few? 🎨
They’re down alleyways, across courtyards, tucked around corners, and covering entire buildings. And I reckon they’re one of Hamilton’s most underrated features.
“Boon” means a blessing, favour, or something very helpful that improves your quality of life. The murals in Hamilton are a boon to our city. 🌈
Boon Co-founder Charlotte Isaac tells me it took a couple of years before people realised Boon was more than graffiti - that it was something businesses should want on their walls, because it turns a building into something more.
“A lot has happened creatively in the central city since then, and Boon has been a part of that, of trying to show that Hamilton is a creative city,” Charlotte says.
The introduction of Boon After Dark and walking tours have opened up new possibilities beyond a flat surface, and Charlotte hopes Boon can keep evolving now that it's "no longer constrained to walls."
The walking tours are a 1.5-hour walk through Hamilton’s city centre where your lovely guide shows you both the murals you walk past every day and the ones you'd probably never have found on your own. 👀
Our guide was Phil, a self-declared Boon fanboy. Exactly the kind of person you want showing you around.
You quickly realise there’s a lot more to painting a giant wall than turning up with a spray can.
One artist uses a ‘doodle grid’ to scale up their work. Another projects an image onto the wall at night and marks out where everything needs to go. Others work completely freehand from a tiny sketch. There are rollers, stencils, dripping paint and clever little tricks with spray paint to create highlights and fading. 🧑🎨
Nancy, a fellow Hamiltonian on our tour, was fascinated by how differently the artists work:
“The different approaches really surprised me. I also enjoyed hearing the stories behind the artworks and where they come from. Some bring local legends or whakataukii (Maaori proverb) to life, while others are “a wander through the artists brain”
The tours originally happened here and there for people with a keen interest, school groups, and the like. Now, Boon runs regular tours for anyone looking to learn more about Hamilton’s street art. Join a tour >
Something I keep discovering through Hello Hamilton is that our city has a lot more to it than we sometimes give it credit for. And our street art is a pretty colourful example of that.
Quick question - did you enjoy this kind of Hello Hamilton story?
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A special thanks to Mia Thomas for contributing the words ✍️ and Alex Lai for taking those 📸 awesome shots for this edition of Hello Hamilton.
— Ben Woodgates
