Celebration of life: Cupcake mural reaches inevitable end
Don't cry because it's over, smile because art happened, say organizers behind the soon-to-be-destroyed Cupcake mural project on 124 Street.
"There is a quite a lot of developmental shift that happens in Alberta, especially in Edmonton, and even though we hate to see the murals go, (demolition) is just part of the reality of painting murals," said Marcus Coldeway, who commissioned the work at 10507 124 Street NW in 2024 in his role as creative director and curator of the Edmonton Mural Festival. "The great thing about the 124 Street project is the developer didn't really get involved in the creative process at all. They were just happy to have us go have fun and really do something cool. And often when that happens, when you don't do art by committee, and you just let the artist go, you get a lot more creativity. You get something that's a lot more vibrant than normal."
Casia Developments provided 90% of the $12,000 project budget in 2024, with the 124 Street and Area Business Association providing the rest, Coldeway said. Andréa Schmidt, SOWL, BEKAY, and Christina Jackson of Salt Spring Island each contributed work that year, while Coldeway and Peter Gegolick served as curators and site managers. It's called Cupcake because "the stucco finish feels like frosting," says the festival's mural map.
All parties knew the property, a six-unit apartment building that was last occupied by tenants in 2019, would be demolished eventually, Myron Borys of Casia Developments told Taproot. He said the City of Edmonton declared the building derelict, meaning its annual property taxes had jumped from around $7,000 to $21,000 per year by the time the mural was commissioned in 2024. Casia has received a demolition permit and expects to knock the building down in the next few weeks. After that, Casia plans to build multi-unit housing on that site and the surrounding property, but when and how much are to be determined, Borys said. (One option is to build two 25-storey towers.)
Why bother beautifying a building when it has received a fatal prognosis? Coldeway argues that the making of a thing is a reward in itself, regardless of what happens later, and Schmidt agrees.
"When an opportunity comes up, most of us all just want to jump on it, especially if you're a newer, emerging mural artist," Schmidt told Taproot. "The thing that was most appealing was working collaboratively with the other three artists because generally, when you're working on a mural, it's just yourself. Maybe you've hired a friend, another artist to help out, but to work with … six artists all together, that was the most appealing part."
Both Schmidt and Coldeway describe the Cupcake process as an "art jam" where creativity flew freely. But the art gratified more than just its makers. "We would see people walk by and just scream out of their car windows, and the BIA has definitely gotten a lot of attention because of it," Coldeway said.
