#andrew garcia

For mural artist Andrew Garcia, the view from Point Woronzof is getting better all the time.

Garcia has painted here occasionally for three years. With his headphones on and his spray can in hand, he spends hours adrift in creativity, combining bold lettering and images with electric colors and inspirational messages.

“I don’t feel in reality when I spray paint like this,” Garcia said, looking at his most recent light- and electricity-themed creation.

“I’ll be here for a good 12 hours, and the next day my toes will feel sore and swollen …” he said. “It’s not just your wrists or your hands. It’s your whole body that has to produce a big mural, and that’s the best part about it.”

Ideas crackle in his head like Pop Rocks candy, he said. But what he couldn’t have imagined until recently is his own transformation from the clandestine artist to a forward-facing community member who wants to paint for a greater good.

Point Woronzof is one place where those worlds meet. For decades, the Alaska Water and Wastewater Utility beach tower has been overrun with eyesore-grade graffiti, a situation made more extensive when large boulders were brought in to slow erosion.

In that landscape, Garcia’s work stands apart. He paints on a section of wall near an equipment access door built into the hillside atop the bluff. Whether he should paint there at all is questionable, but it’s hard to imagine it would look better if he didn’t. Every inch is sprayed over by others and has been for years.