Scattered across Atlanta you can find beautiful paintings on walls of buildings. These murals are part of the the Living Walls Atlanta Conference, a collective effort between local and international artist to use street art “to promote, educate and change perspectives about public space,” according to the organization’s mission statement. Started in 2010, Living Walls has created public art in various corners of metro-Atlanta. You can currently find six living Walls murals on Decatur’s walls. Here they are!

1. 430 West Trinity Place
(Beacon Hill Complex)
by Michi and Adrian Barzaga 

Pumped up to see the first wall, I followed the GPS on my phone. When the GPS announced that I had arrived, I looked up to see this:

The construction workers at the site could not remember tearing down a mural on one of the walls, but numerous residents could confirm the construction site was formerly the Beacon Hill Recreation Center, where the mural had been previously. Living Walls creations have a history of being torn down or painted over for different reasons. As seen in the photo below, this wall seemed to have been demolished as a part of a larger remodeling project for the whole block.

Disheartened, I continued my search for the murals.

2. 113 East Court Square
(Squash Blossom Building)
by Gaia and Nanook

Located in the middle of the courtyard, the second wall was the easiest to find.

The first picture didn’t capture the intricacy of the mural, so I tried to capture some of the details in a close-up picture.

3. 133 Sycamore Street
(Dancer’s Core Alley)
by Sam Parker

The third location was the most difficult to find. Although you can see the alley from the courtyard, a bolted gate blocks that entrance.

The second entrance is through a parking lot. it’s definitely not a location you’ll stumble across.

Then the narrow alley made it impossible to capture a single picture with the entire mural. Here is a portion of the mural.

4. 211 East Trinity Place 
(Back wall of Twain’s) 
by Doodles, Gaia and Clown Soldier 

There was another mural on the adjacent wall of the Living Walls mural. Twain’s garbage small deterred me from getting closer to the second mural (pictured right).

The last two murals can be found on opposing sides of a seemingly abandoned building right down the road from Twain’s.

5. 302 East Howard Avenue 
by Freddy Sam and Ever 

The larger of the two murals faces the west.

6. 308 East Howard Avenue 
by Jason Kofke

The final mural in Downtown Decatur can be found on the opposing side of the larger mural.

There is an additional wall in south Decatur, located at East Lake Drive in Oakhurst.

The highlight of my trip was that although I got lost numerous times, every single person I stumbled across went out of their way to answer my questions. Thank you residents of Decatur!