Onion 594

Onion 594 borrows its name from the Los Angles city police code for graffiti. It sports arrows painted in purple, black, and orange that wind their way up the sculpture, suggesting the petals of an onion. Onion 594 was created in situ at Land Title Plaza (First & Main).

The Artist

Travis Reiff

Travis Reiff grew up in California and Las Vegas and came to Walla Walla a few years ago for a more relaxed pace of living. He works at Reiff Manufacturing, a family business near the Walla Walla Airport, and enjoys music, car shows, drawing, and painting in his free time.

Travis first took up graffiti eleven years ago as an act of rebellion. Not many people are able to work in the graffiti style because it requires so much trial and error to turn out well. So, as he built his skill, he began to realize the potential of the medium for artistic expression and its marketability. He was encouraged by a design teacher at Walla Walla Community College who recognized his talent, and first gained public recognition when the Union-Bulletin published a story on his mural behind Stardust Lanes.

Travis created Onion 594 on-the-fly. He chose to showcase an arrow pattern because that frequently appears in graffiti to disguise letters. The most important thing to him was, “to create it in public so people could see the whole process that goes into it, the outlining, the filling it in and everything.”