Jan14

Public Art in Dublin, CA

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I smelled like cedar for the first couple of hours I started working on this project. Added a couple layers of gesso and then started with color.

My first commission of the year and an exciting project with the City of Dublin, California. I painted two large Adirondack chairs, which will be installed in the Spring and available for auction in the fall. I am really excited to be working with the City. This particular experience was seamless and enjoyable.

The Dublin Heritage Park and Museum are prety spectacular they have a ten-acre park with historic buildings, lawns, a historic cemetery, and picnic areas.

Featured are two museums on site: the 1856 Murray Schoolhouse, which houses a permanent exhibit on Dublin’s history; and the Kolb House, a historic house museum.  Also on site are the 1859 St. Raymond Church, and the Dublin Pioneer Cemetery.

I applied for the project in late 2019 and they will be temporary art displays which are a great way to bring people together and activate spaces around Dublin. Similar to utility boxes, they also add an element of interaction that I really enjoy. Watching someone sit on a piece of artwork you created feels pretty amazing. There are a total of 18 different artists and the theme of the project is  “New American Backyard”

The completed chairs will make their first appearance at the City of Dublin’s St. Patrick’s Day Festival, March 14-15, 2020.  The Adirondack chairs will then be on display at select businesses, parks, and events throughout Dublin, March through September 2020.  Come out and see them all.  Make sure to take note of the chair or chairs that you like best, as all of the chairs will be sold at an auction during a City fall event.  Proceeds will benefit the City’s Public Art Program.

 

I am looking forward to following up with these chairs and seeing where they are placed in Dublin as well as where they end up after the auction.

Nov2

My Largest Mural Yet, ‘Portland Perspective’

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It is with pleasure I present to you, “A Piece of Portland,” a playful interpretation of the Portland cityscape through iconic buildings and locations throughout the city. Here, imagination is boundless through the whimsical style, while the viewer can also identify all of their favorite places unique to Portland in one painting.

 

The mural will is significant in scale and colorfully represent the geographic landscape of Portland. The mural features local neighborhoods, iconic bridges, cyclists, characters, farmers market gatherings, parks, bustling cars and buses, the MAX train and more.

At the focal point (right side of the mural) is the Hollywood Neighborhood, represented with over 40 different buildings and businesses. 

The painting is a result of weeks of research to ensure iconic locations, art organizations, nonprofits, tall buildings, smaller structures, parks, and neighborhoods that make Portland weird were all represented in the mural. With the help of architectural software Sketchup, I built a 3-dimensional Portland cityscape to get an accurate perspective of the City in its relation to the Hollywood Neighborhood. 

“Portland Perspective” celebrates the larger city of Portland with a playful and more detailed depiction of the home of the mural, the Hollywood neighborhood. The mural brings together local businesses and people of diverse backgrounds together in one place. Local businesses can point to the mural and say “I know that place! I walk by there every day to go to work”. I want neighbors and viewers to see themselves in the mural and feel a sense of familiarity and belonging.

 

The piece took almost 2 weeks of painting. Thank you to Leavitt Machinery for their help with renting a telescopic boom. The whole painting took about 8 gallons of paint, 15 quarts of paint, 10 paintbrushes under 3 inches in size, 10 rollers, and lots of support and love from the Hollywood Neighborhood. Thank you to Paul Clark with 42nd Street Station for commissioning me to create the work. We worked hard and for almost a year prior to the work coming to life. Thank you to Jacque Authier for hosting me and to Mike Cobb for the connections you made to make me feel at home in Portland.

 

Oct18

Public Art in Lakewood, Colorado

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I created six mailboxes for the City of Lakewood, Colorado and the 40 West Arts District. The series is called “Poem Mailboxes” and showcases unique mailboxes created for gardens, birdhouses and the use of upcycled materials.

The works are interactive sculptures that being a sense of slow-paced nostalgia. The focus lays on the participatory form of communication that in this day and age is a lost art form. For some, it is their first time interacting with slow mail and writing poetry outside of the classroom. Anonymous and creative, the concept is that participants read poetry and create poetry at the mailbox. The mailbox encourages the viewer to engage with the world outside of their normal routine in somewhat of a dreamlike escape

Last year I started taking full-time classes at Laney College in their Wood Technology department. At first, I wanted to learn safety within the realm of machining and wood. What I learned was so much more than that, I received a new medium to express myself and a way that I could use my art to reach more people.

The works stand 6 feet tall, created from redwood posts 4″ x 4″s and painted with acrylic paints. There is an oil-based coat on the top, thank you, Andrew, for supporting me with testing various topcoat layers.

 

Thank you, Liz and Kate, from 40 West Arts District, A creative district and destination along the ArtLine. This organization is a nonprofit, state-certified creative district along Lakewood’s historic West Colfax Avenue with the mission of energizing and promoting West Colfax through art experiences, exhibitions, and events that engage the whole family.

Here is a little more about the ArtLine and you can get a better idea of where my mailboxes live.

Sep7

‘Starlit’, Keen + Lyft Collaboration

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In June I teamed up with Urban Artworks and Lyft in Seattle to create a team-building mural at the new Lyft driver location off Industrial and Airport road in Seattle. The style of the collaborative work was that similar to paint by numbers. I created an outline and the team filled in the shapes with colors identified by colored dots.

Introducing: ‘Starlit’, 25′ x 11′ consisting of two walls, at the entrance of their building and on the side facing outward which can be seen from Airport Way.

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I was excited to be working with Urban Artworks. I have followed their work in the past couple of years and was excited to collaborate.

Thank you again to Urban Artworks especially Project Lead Paul Nunn. Thank you to all the participants at Lyft, I would not have been able to complete this project without you! I am so glad that you have a reminder of this work every time you visit your place of work.

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Jun5

“Dogs of Danville” Public Art Installation

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What an incredible experience it was working with the City of Danville, California for the “Dogs of Danville” sculpture installation.

My piece “How we grow” is an acrylic based colorful and whimsical piece that brings the viewer around the dog for a full 360-degree experience with every angle offering a different perspective. I wanted the dog to have movement complete with brightness and a sense of playfulness. One of the most time-intensive parts of the process (besides applying) is how the dog required multiple layers of paint. One can see by viewing the time-lapse that 3-4 coats of paint were needed to make a stable and bright hue that I desired as an outcome. This also was true with the black and white lines across the dog as well. The entire dog took me about 3 days of painting at a good 3-4 hour sessions. My roommates were cheering me on as I was painting in the backyard, complete with guitar playing and sunbathing.

The City put out a call months before asking for requests for applications to paint or add mixed media to the already casted plexiglass dog sculptures. Half of the dogs were standing, and the other half was standing.

The art opening took place on May 9th, 2019 at the Village Theatre and Art Gallery in Danville, CA, where all 15 artists celebrated their works. The installation of the dogs happened after the celebration where they found semi-permanent locations throughout Danville. My piece was the unique and lucky one to stay at the Village Theatre, welcoming guests and patrons of the theatre at the front entrance.

I am so thankful to be included in this show and grateful for the Danville Arts Commission for including me in the show.

Please watch my timelapse and be sure to check out “How We Grow” until September 2019 where they will be auctioned off.

Oct15

Oakland Mural – “Airmid” the Goddess of healing through Herbalism

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May I introduce “Airmid,“ the violet Serpent standing at 100’ x 18’ – Spray Paint – Oakland, California. Here Airmid, the Celtic Goddess of healing through herbs and transformation, is depicted as a snake. The consciously chosen violet with powers to heal and transmute.

Being an Artist is hard work and hustle, it’s not always pretty and its never just about painting. Nevermore did I need the snake medicine midst painting outside of the 18-year-old Co-Op run “A taste of Denmark Bakery” on the corner of 34th and Telegraph. It was challenging because of confrontation, vandalism, and coming up with a plan as a neighborhood on how to restore the mural. Upon completion, I felt like a whole new Artist.

This was the largest piece that I have ever created, and the second time that I used spray paint. I traveled daily with my bicycle of course and could not have done it without the Xtracycle! That bicycle is the reason why I have not had a car in over 8 years! I loaded up spray paint from the lovely 14th Street Supply Company in Oakland, which by the way, was the best experience I ever had purchasing paint! Quality and affordable cans.

The color scheme I chose is my ideal color palette. I recently started creating my pieces digitally before painting. That way, I can play around with color and start to see different ways that I could expand concepts. For Airmid, she was really about trying a new medium, style, and balancing that with a design that I have always dreamt of creating. I wanted to make the piece simple but also with movement and activation. The snakeskin was enough detail for just getting into spray paint and the slight difference in colors creates an incredible aesthetic that you can get with layer similar colors on top of one another. I learned that technique from a sweet friend in Berlin while creating “Arriving”.

    

Thank you to Edward for your support and encouragement with this piece. For the opportunity and freedom to create what I artistically wanted. Thank you for the introduction to your world and family. Thank you to the neighborhood of 34th street, the multigenerational family members across the street that watched the entire process. They brought me coffee, pastries, and conversation.

Thank you, Hunter Franks, for your grace and confrontation skills that I only dream of creating. You stepped up and supported me in a way that I cannot thank you enough.

Thank you to Sari Blum for capturing the final day, your photos are so meaningful to me. Check out her work Y’all Sari is a badass photographer that can shoot just about anything!

Lastly, thank you Nate Bauld for being there the morning I covered up the mural from graffiti. I did not want to do it alone.

Thank you, Maisha, Benji, Lauren, Carolyn, Heather, Ruca, Fenner, Jenna, Ben and all the others who stopped by to support me and say hello. The support means the world to me.

Till the next project. I love you all, thanks for being there for me.

Oct11

Bicycle Touring Murals

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This past summer I set off for the second time for the Pacific Northwest on a bicycle tour with the incredible, Biketopia Music Collective. We rode our bicycles from Olympia, Washington back to our home in Oakland, CA over the span of 2.5 months.

Our goal? Use our bodies upon our large bicycles to pedal ourselves in an intentional community through cities where we would perform music with pedal-powered music! Pedal power? The same bicycles we use to tour on, we used for the community to pedal our shows! 3-4 hours long, we had different acts and musicians contribute; including murals!

In Seaside, Oregon I created a 1-day mural with participants from the local community center to create a gorgeous mural that was inspired by the garden and all of the love that went into the creation of it.

In Portland, Oregon, I created an incredible large mural that was abstract in style, and colorful in content. This piece was in the Hollywood district just right across the bicycle shop Velo Cult, which is where the bicycle touring group performed. This mural was the first where I had a reveal party with music and friends. I loved to include the community in the reveal as this is an important aspect to the mural and the future life that it will lead.

You can find the 20′ x 15′ foot mural entitled “Sacred Waters” at 42nd and Tillamook in the Hollywood District on the side of Popina Swimwear.