PROSPECT-LEFFERTS GARDENS — A local artist is looking for help to keep a longtime neighborhood landmark intact.
Muralist Kwenci Jones made a bid to community residents this week to help restore “The Guardians,” the 120-foot-long mural of wild animals painted on the walls surrounding the Flatbush Avenue exit of the Prospect Park subway station.
Decorated with images of birds, a leopard, elephant, giraffe and jungle scenery, it’s seen by both Prospect-Lefferts Gardens residents on their daily commutes and visitors to the nearby Prospect Park Zoo.
Jones first painted the mural in 1998 when the wall was “120 feet of blight,” he said at a Community Board 9 meeting this week.
“Since then, I’ve been keeping up the integrity of that wall, restoring it and preparing it and keeping it nice,” Jones said.
But after fixing up the wall twice since he created it — once in 2006 by himself and the second time in 2012 with the help of local students and residents — he wants to paint two protective coats on the wall to ensure its survival for up to two decades, he said.
“If we put the correct solvents on the wall, it’ll last for 20 years,” he said.
One solvent is an “isolation coat,” he said, which protects the artwork itself and another is a UV sealant, “which protects the wall from UV rays and water damage.”
To cover the entire 2,400-square-foot area, Jones estimates he’ll need about $4,000, which he hopes he can raise from those who see the mural every day.
“I’ve always had to struggle with the funding to do this, which I don’t understand because if the neighborhood enjoys this mural, if the neighborhood benefits from this mural, it should be something that we all take a part in,” he said.
Jones set up a Go Fund Me page to raise the money for the mural restoration, which he hopes to begin this spring. As of Friday, the project needed another $1,000 to reach its goal.
