![\"Lynn](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/1778182769_979_.jpeg\"\/)
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Full conversation<\/p>\n
LYNN TRIMBLE:<\/b> There are some artists who are concerned that the guidelines could eventually incorporate something that would impact on the aesthetics of murals or what they’re able to paint and get approval for, if it should go in the direction of requiring permits. Now, that’s not required now, but that’s part of that ambiguity because as you’re developing these guidelines, it’s impossible to know what the endpoint will be. So there are some people concerned with the uncertainty.<\/p>\n
LAUREN GILGER:<\/b> Right. I mean, I guess it raises alarms particularly because of the, the context in which it’s happening, right? Like you wrote in your piece here that lots of arts organizations and artists in general really feel a sense of paranoia is how you put it right now about basically censorship, about restrictions because of what’s happening in the broader landscape. Tell us about that.<\/p>\n
LYNN TRIMBLE:<\/b> What we’re seeing across the Southwest is the impacts of both censorship or erasure or sort of historical, attempts at historical change at the federal level. But we’ve also seen some accusations or allegations at the local level with museums in the Southwest, for example, wanting to restrict the types of things that are shown. So it is an environment where it makes sense for artists to be thinking about those, those types of questions.<\/p>\n
LAUREN GILGER:<\/b> Right. And it’s a politically charged environment right now and a very divisive one. So I’m imagining that came up when you talked to some local artists about this \u2014 like, you know, will I be able to paint something if it hints at a political issue?<\/p>\n
LYNN TRIMBLE:<\/b> We had artists concerned about the politics, just the aesthetics. We had some concern that everything would begin to look the same, that there would become a kind of generic quality. <\/p>\n
And of course, some artists are concerned about murals being used as branding \u2014 you know, they’re just Instagram backgrounds, for example, or a way to try to sell mural tourism. That’s a quote I got from another artist. So, you know, they have a whole broad range of concerns.<\/p>\n
LAUREN GILGER:<\/b> I, I should point out, this is a way \u2014 like painting murals is a way that a lot of artists can really make some money, right? Like it’s these public projects in which, you know, you can be funded.<\/p>\n
LYNN TRIMBLE:<\/b> Funding is one of the issues, and it’s a very touchy issue because artists have explained to me that there are some artists who lowball their work in order to get exposure, get their foot in the door, which can bring down what’s offered to other artists. <\/p>\n
So one of the things that could potentially be helpful in a set of guidelines is some way to help artists and commissioners know what’s a fair market rate and how do we pay artists appropriately for their labor.<\/p>\n
LAUREN GILGER:<\/b> Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. There was also this effort a decade ago in Phoenix that became controversial at the time, Lynn, I’m sure you covered, in historic neighborhoods where the city had said, you know, maybe we need to limit or, or curtail some of the murals that are painted in those particular parts of town.<\/p>\n
LYNN TRIMBLE:<\/b> There was a mural festival several years ago and the organizer lived in the Willo historic neighborhood. So a lot of murals were painted there, and there were some residents who took issue with either the very existence of the murals or the particular types of things that artists were painting. <\/p>\n
So there was a very contentious meeting at Burton Barr Central Library, attended by, I want to say, a hundred or so people, including a lot of artists who spoke to this. That history is another reason that artists here are keeping a very careful eye on how this guideline process unfolds.<\/p>\n
LAUREN GILGER:<\/b> Yeah, absolutely. On the other side of this, though, we should say, Lynn, you did talk to some artists who thought, you know, maybe this could be a good thing in terms of maybe the pricing like you mentioned, but also maybe the city’s trying to, I think the quote was “up its mural game.”<\/p>\n
LYNN TRIMBLE:<\/b> Yes, we absolutely had some artists who said they like the idea of having best practices, both so that fellow artists are making quality work and they also want people who have murals painted to know what they need to do. Do they need to clear-coat it? Do they need to build in a budget for maintenance every five years? That type of thing.<\/p>\n
LAUREN GILGER:<\/b> Interesting. I wonder, Lynn, lastly, like what this, you think, says about the state of arts in the city? <\/p>\n
Like, the city has been very, pretty like open-ended about murals painted here, pretty welcoming to them. There’s been a lot of efforts to get more murals painted around the city, whether it’s for tourism or for, you know, beautification or just making downtown more interesting, making neighborhoods more interesting, things like that. <\/p>\n
Do you think this marks a turning point in that? Maybe like we’ve reached a critical mass of murals and the city’s thinking maybe not so many?<\/p>\n
LYNN TRIMBLE:<\/b> What I always think about is, how do we center the artist and creative free expression here? And what I’m watching for is whether the city is potentially moving more towards murals as a way of promoting economic development, tourism. <\/p>\n
In other words, is it, rather than a way of embracing creativity, is it a way to sell the city? Which can lead some decision-makers to narrow the scope of what they want to see on our walls. And of course artists, as one said about the story, “keep murals wild.” That’s their goal.<\/p>\n
LAUREN GILGER:<\/b> Keep murals wild. All right. We’ll leave it there and see what happens. Lynn Trimble, freelance writer in Phoenix, long-time arts writer here, wrote this article for Southwest Contemporary. Lynn, thanks so much for coming on, I appreciate it.<\/p>\n
LYNN TRIMBLE:<\/b> Thank you.<\/p>\n
KJZZ’s The Show transcripts are created on deadline. This text is edited for length and clarity, and may not be in its final form. The authoritative record of KJZZ’s programming is the audio record.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For a long time now, the city of Phoenix has been pretty hands off when it comes to…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":780320,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5131],"tags":[5229,5643,1587,1589,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-780319","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-phoenix","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-arizona","10":"tag-az","11":"tag-phoenix","12":"tag-united-states","13":"tag-united-states-of-america","14":"tag-unitedstates","15":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","16":"tag-us","17":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116534992527683520","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/780319","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=780319"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/780319\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/780320"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=780319"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=780319"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=780319"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}