Area 23 is not your typical bar. The place has a skeleton band hanging out above the bar, a TV that rarely (if ever) shows sports, bowls of bacon and board games galore.
Now it has a gigantic fighting octopus mural, too. Because of course it does.
The work is the product of artist and bartender Krystin Watts, who used to work at Area 23.
“When they were first opening about two years ago, I found an article about them and decided we should be friends,” Watts said of Area 23. “They’re kind of a geeky place and I’m geeky, and I’m a bartender. I contacted them and said I’m a bartender and an artist, if they needed either, and they needed both.”
The next thing you know, Watts was either pouring drinks or putting paint on the walls at Area 23. You know the paintings by the bathrooms and pool table? Those were done by Watts.
The latest piece she’s done there, the massive mural depicting octopuses fighting in a brewery, was just finished a couple weeks ago. She had known for awhile that she had the okay to paint that wall, she just needed to come up with an idea.
“I came up with the idea of the octopi sometime last year,” Watts said, using her preferred plural terminology for octopuses. “I thought it would be really neat to feature octopi battling it out in a bar.”
She said “octopi” don’t really have any deeper significance in her life; she just finds them fascinating.
The work was quite the undertaking. Watts would show up three to four hours before the bar opened to get some painting in. Often, she’d just stay until the place opened, at which point she’d begin her bartending shift.
In total, she spent 125 hours over the course of about a year painting the mural – the largest work she’s ever done.
“A large wall was a challenge, and I’m not sure I would jump at the chance again,” she said.
Watts is a professional artist by trade, and if you like this mural, you can contact her at 540-1913 or domekitty@gmail.com to talk about having her paint something for you – just try not to ask her to paint an entire wall.
“I’m hoping to do a lot more smaller stuff, for sure,” she said.
