I am writing to you from the floor of my studio. Aster is trying really hard to also type, I am fighting her off for now but if she really wants the job I might give it to her. I spent the last few days recovering from installing the largest mural I have ever done (over 40ft long) by going to a giants game and hitting the river with my parents and dogs. This will have been my 4th mural- and each time I do a mural I learn something new but what stays the same is that each time I do a mural I need serious recovery time. Murals are a lot of things, they’re physical, fun, exciting, overwhelming, exhausting, huge and full of problems to solve that are only in theory until you are on site.
This particular mural was for Lululemon for their Santa Rosa store which reopens tomorrow August 2nd. Since I have done murals before, I didn’t feel quite so overwhelmed as we approached this. I knew there were going to be known unknowns and unknown unknowns no matter how much planning I did but in general I felt confident in how I was going to tackle it. I will share some of the things I do and practical things I have prepped when i do a mural at the end of this email, so you can scroll down if you are a paid subscriber and peep that if you want or you would find it helpful.
I was able to budget in an assistant this time, so I brought on my friend and student Camey Yeh- Camey and I have been working together in mentorship for over a year and half at this point and I felt confident in bringing her on the job site with me. She helped me prep and install the backgrounds on the walls, mix colors and block in some large shapes. After that I pretty much needed to do the rest- but honestly having her help was great, made the hardest parts move quickly.
Another factor in this particular job was that it was an active job-site, which meant there were anywhere from 5-40 construction workers working around me almost the entire time. Everyone was respectful and kind, but we had to work around one another, move out of the way, we didn’t have lights or electrical for the first 4 days of the 8 days which required mixing color outside and trusting that the colors were correct when we painted them inside. These are some examples of the unknown unknowns!
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