Flint muralist engages community through art

Flint, MI— Johnny Fletcher’s earliest memory of creating art is standing on a stool and scribbling on his parents’ wall at their Bunker Hill home in Flint.

Fletcher has since turned his childhood hobby into a career as a muralist and community artist.

The 39-year-old artist began by experimenting with watercolors for fun. He then worked as a tattoo artist for 13 years and started working on large canvases in 2022.

“I painted a Kurt Cobain watercolor portrait and then shared it on Facebook. It got passed around, and Sandra Branch and Joe Schipani from the Flint Public Art Project had seen that and they reached out to me and asked if I would ever be interested in painting a mural,” Fletcher said.

In 2023, he painted his first mural for the Flint Public Art Project, a non-profit collaborative that aims to integrate art into public spaces that are vacant or underutilized. The mural depicts Mac Miller, a hip-hop rapper and producer who tragically died from a drug overdose at age 26 in 2018. This piece is exhibited on the back wall of Julie’s Pawn & Jewelry Sales on the corner of 12th and Saginaw Street.

“I go back to my Mac Miller mural a lot and just look at it because it’s cool to see my progression over a couple years,” Fletcher said. “Because I’ve done so much so fast, it just seems like I’ve been doing this for five plus years, but I’ve really only been doing it for a couple.” 

Fletcher used aerosol paint for the first time to create the mural of the late rapper. It took him 14 days and three tries to complete the project to his liking.

“All these people showed up and would give me tips and really just hung out and it was kind of cool,” Fletcher said. “It kind of reminded me of a summer barbecue vibe where all your friends are just hanging out and it was a good time.”

Flint artists like Kevin Burdick, Charlie Boike, Isiah Lattimore, and Schipani, who is is manager, helped Fletcher gain early footing in the art world. 

Since then, Fletcher has produced 16 murals around Flint, including the cardboard box robot reaching for the stars at the back of Flint City Hard Cider, his hummingbird on South Dort Hwy, and the Jaguars mural for the Flint Southwestern Jaguars in their stadium.

These solo projects typically take him up to five days, depending on the surface’s size. 

You may have seen his more temporary works while driving past the infamous rock in Flint. Fletcher started doing these paintings as a fun endeavor to prepare himself for the mural season and potentially put smiles on peoples’ faces after suffering through the dreary winter.

“I kept painting a bunch of nature stuff and then I painted this Alice in Wonderland piece that really went wild on Facebook and got a lot of shares. People in the community have just really been following me along and sharing me and boosting me up and it’s pretty nice.”

Most recently, Fletcher collaborated with Flint Rx Kids to allow over 20 students from the Flint Cultural Center to attend a murals and street art workshop. Students had the opportunity to paint hearts on Fletcher’s mural at the back of Sloan Museum’s Buick Gallery Building, the largest mural in Genesee County at 3,404 square feet.

Community art is more than just a paycheck to Fletcher, who expressed extreme gratitude to his local supporters throughout his journey.

“Oh, man, it’s uplifting,” he said. “It can change someone’s day and beautify a neighborhood and the community off something so simple. Art is just one of those things that people overlook. It’s something that is absent in a lot of people’s daily lives.”

Moving forward, Fletcher is excitedly working to launch his art studio, which he calls “Studio Five.” He describes it as a retail store specializing in art supplies and hopes to open the studio by Fall 2024.