Artist by day, bartender by night

It’s 2 p.m. and partly cloudy — the ideal time for Billy Graves to roll out of bed.
After a busy night and busier morning of serving drinks and wiping tables, the 29-year-old IU alumnus wipes sleep from his hazel eyes — he’d managed six hours, this time — readjusts his signature mohawk and throws on a red Indiana shirt smudged with bright white paint. It’ll only get dirtier today.

Instead of stirring cocktails, the full time bartender will spend the afternoon mixing paint.

He must continue to transform, brick by painstaking brick, 79 feet of Kilroy’s on Kirkwood into a detailed reflection of
Hoosier culture.

Now serving legacy

Last spring, Dave Prall, manager of KOK, decided he wanted a massive mural to cover the building’s left side. Kilroy’s has been under his family’s ownership since the ’70s, he said. It’s up to him to make it look good.

He approached Graves with the commission just before the bar closed for summer renovations. After all, the bartender had graduated with a degree in fine arts, spent off hours illustrating comic books and had devoted nearly three years of service to Kilroy’s.

It wasn’t Graves’ first artistic endeavor for Prall. He’d painted objects inside the bar, too: a logo-emblazoned table, an embellished “Drinko” wheel.
But the 79-by-13-foot space — a canvas that would take three months to fill — was his largest undertaking.

“It’s kind of a big deal, I guess,” Graves said. “But I don’t really have passionate feelings about it. It’s a job — not my personal mural, my personal ideas. But I do have pride. It’s mine.”

Prall instructed Graves to cover the wall in IU memorabilia: scenes from Assembly Hall, cheerleaders, Little 500 cyclists and football players.

To bring Prall’s vision to life, Graves arranged a collage with photos he’d found online. He sketched the scenes, used Photoshop to apply color and divided a mural outline into small grids.

Then, he mounted his ladder and began painting in June.
“It all started on paper,” Graves said. “Every inch I drew scaled to a foot of space on the wall. And it was hard to not get stuck on every foot of space because I’m so detail-oriented. I kept telling myself to focus on the big picture.”

A job well painted

Now, as Kirkwood Avenue buzzes to life with the return of IU students, only a few blank spaces remain on the animated wall.

Graves, admiring his work, reminisces on difficulties he faced throughout those long, hot afternoons of painting: abrasive construction sounds, uneven ground, workers throwing away his paint, shelling out cash to resupply his paint and surprise-attack bee stings.

He estimates he’ll be finished by mid-week. And then, he’ll have a beer.

“It looks so good — I love it!” his co-bartender and girlfriend Nisha said, as she stood outside the establishment and gazed upward. “But I knew it would be really good. I’ve seen his work.”

Despite using durable paint, Graves said he knows keeping his work “really good” will require frequent attention. Thanks to continuous exposure of sunlight and rain, the mural’s lifespan peaks at four years.

But Prall, pleased and impressed, will maintain the artwork. It’s the best mural in town, he said.

“I’m very happy with the results,” he said. “The mural has exceeded my expectations and captured IU spirit.”

As for Graves, he’ll continue bartending and illustrating comic books. Eventually, he’ll write his own. He’s already envisioned characters and a plotline, though he refuses to reveal details.

But Prall has another task for the artist to complete before he serves a single Long Island.

“You’ve got another table to paint,” he said with a grin.