Can't wait for these! Hopefully there will be more to come...
Manifesting Murals | PART 5: You Might Get Lucky
This week marks the one year anniversary of painting my first murals. Two murals in 10 days, in fact. Prior to painting these murals in Austin, I had zero mural experience & no reason to believe I could pull it off. Following is the 6-part story of how I did it. [Read from the beginning.]
We were going to attempt the mural on the back wall of the Continental Club starting at 7am on Thursday, July 14th. It was due to hit 100 degrees that day so Dana and I wanted some time before the sun cooked us completely, and we had to be finished by around 1pm.
I had paint, I had partners, I had a stencil that I hoped would suffice, but I was still scared as hell about those ladders. On Wednesday night I had plans to meet friends for drinks, but I was stewing and worrying about the ladders. Remembering my commitment not to doubt, I needed to clear my head. I said a prayer out loud, saying how scared I was and that I didn't think I could do it. I asked for help. I said I couldn't do it by myself. I didn't want to give up on the opportunity, but I also didn't want to be an inexperienced idiot and fall off a ladder and break my arm or split my head open (or Dana’s). I felt better after I spoke my fears and prayed for help.
That night I met my friends met at the private bar of the Hotel Saint Cecilia. About eight of us sat outside in the darkness, sipped our cold margaritas and chatted. It was super hot out, so at one point my mind wandered. I was still worried about those ladders. For a moment I sat quietly and my eyes drifted to the window of the indoor bar where the lights were bright. A figure moved through my line of vision, and I recognized him. It was Evan Voyles of the Neon Jungle, a friend of a friend I'd met a few times, the guy who designs and hangs all the big neon signs in Austin. Hangs neon signs, I thought. Up high. This guy might know something about ladders!
I was nervous to bother him, but I needed help so I got up without telling my friends where I was headed and made a beeline inside to bug Evan. I'd barely said two sentences about my dilemma before he grabbed a paper napkin and took a pencil out of his pocket. "The trick is to triangulate," he explained, drawing a straight ladder on a wall and a diagram of how to tie a rope to secure it. He said he'd developed this method after falling off far too many ladders.
He was literally the perfect person to ask about ladder safety methods, and he'd shown up right where I wasn't looking for him. And he was really gracious about it. "Here's my number in case you need help," he said. "But we're starting at 7am," I replied. I really didn't want to bother him. "I'm up early, busy day tomorrow.“ he said. Then my friends found me and told me they were leaving. I tucked my paper napkin ladder diagram into my purse and wondered at the perfect luck that I had to run in to him, and felt proud of myself for asking for help and keeping the faith.
The next morning I met Dana outside the club at 7am. Fabian pulled up in his truck with two straight ladders, and I showed them my cocktail napkin schematic. We had to move a wooden bench and dug out some dirt to place the first ladder. It felt pretty sturdy, and we tried the rope triangulation, but the angle where we had to set it was steep. We tested the second ladder and realized it was shaky, old and really too short. I was not confident at all with our setup. The last thing I wanted to do was bother Evan, but we were stuck. I called him. "I can be there in about 20 minutes," he said. While we were waiting, Fabian used the good ladder to boldly climb up to the roof and help us hang the stencil.
A few minutes later Evan skidded up in his truck. In a seemingly effortless motion, he lifted a giant ladder off his truck, placed it on the ground, threw some rope around it in his triangulated pattern, re-tied the rope on on our first ladder, gave both ladders a quick test and then popped back in to his truck. "Call me later when you want to drop it off," he said, and drove away. It all happened in a blur. He was like the angel of ladder safety!
We now had two very sturdy ladders so Dana and I were set to go. I was a bit nervous at first to be so high off the ground, but once I started painting I was able to focus on the task at hand. The black brick was textured and also had some deep furrows in it, so it sucked up a fair amount of paint. I had to go slowly to follow the stencil without destroying it, laying in enough paint to cover the thirsty brick without causing any drips. Dana and I each worked on a ladder; I set the outlines and she filled them in.
One funny thing about that morning is that absolutely no one bothered us or asked us what we were up to. Granted, it is in an alley, but several cars and a construction crew passed us by without a blink. In theory, we could have executed the entire mural in broad daylight without anyone's permission. There's a wonderful tradition and history for guerilla art, but it's not my style. I’d be too scared of getting caught and I want my art to be an invited part of someone's property.
A little bit after noon, about five hours in, it looked like we were finishing up. I painted over several spots and could have kept painting for another hour, but we were getting overheated, sunburned and hungry and the bar employees were set to start arriving at 1pm. I quickly painted my signature and we cleaned up our materials. We took a bunch of photos, high fived, and then returned Evan's ladder to him at his studio. I bought lunch, and then we all departed. I got back to the house where I was staying, showered, then lay on the bed under the ceiling fan. My muscles ached and I was bone tired from the heat. But, again, I was totally high.
I had painted two murals in three days. It happened. It's real. They're still there.
Stay tuned for the final post.
Manifesting Murals | PART 4: You Might Get More Than You Bargained For
This week marks the one year anniversary of painting my first murals. Two murals in 10 days, in fact. Prior to painting these murals in Austin, I had zero mural experience & no reason to believe I could pull it off. Following is the 6-part story of how I did it. [Read from the beginning.]
I woke up on Tuesday July 12th, the morning after I painted my very first mural on Fabian's garage, and I was so proud of myself. I had slept hard, my muscles sore from climbing up and down ladders for 5 hours. It was that rewarding fatigue that you get from physical labor, plus I was a bit high that my experiment had worked. And so quickly! But I wasn't out of the woods yet -- I had the back wall of the Continental Club to paint.
One thing I didn't mention in this heretofore chronological story is that my boyfriend had told me he was going to reach out to some of his friends to try to find me a wall. I thought it was a nice gesture but didn't think twice about it until he told me that he spoke with Steve Wertheimer, owner of the esteemed Continental Club, the best venue on South Congress Avenue. A place where I had been going since college and where my boyfriend had played many times. Steve said I could paint on the back wall of his club.
What? Did I just get offered to paint on the back side of the Continental Club? I couldn't believe it. If this was an option, why wasn't the wall already filled with murals?
I drove by the wall and took a few photos, trying to determine the best placement and proportions. The logistics for this mural were quite different from the one on Fabian's garage, so I had a whole new set of things to figure out. The wall is black so I couldn't project the design on it, I’d have to make a stencil. The ground below the wall was uneven and the wall was partly obstructed by a tree. Design-wise, the best placement for my arrows would be halfway up the wall near the roof. I'd need to figure out how to safely place some straight ladders on uneven ground and get both me and Dana over 10 feet up in the air.
Allow me to explain to you that I'm not a physical risk taker. I'm not an athlete, I've never broken a bone, I like my feet on the ground. I'm not afraid of heights per se, but I have ZERO DESIRE to climb high up a rickety ladder. We'd climbed around on ladders for the first mural, but they were steady A-frames on level ground. I was super worried about it.
Despite the fact that I’d just successfully painted my first mural, I was even more nervous than before. My mind was filled with doubts, I had no idea how I would pull it off, but how could I say NO?
My mockup
A voice in my head said, maybe this is all a mistake. To double check that Steve actually meant to offer the wall up to me, I mocked up the design and emailed it to him. I thought, maybe he'll see it and just cancel the whole idea! On Monday, July 11th, the morning before I was going to paint my very first mural on Fabian's garage, I emailed Steve the mockup asking if he approved. He emailed right back, "Looks good." Oh shit, I thought, I'm leaving town in five days and I have to figure out how to paint this wall.
On Wednesday afternoon, I went to use my painter friend's art studio so I could make the stencil. I had a roll of craft paper that I'd bought previously, and I searched around and found some masking tape and eventually one pair of dull scissors. I taped a few lengths of paper together to cover about a 5 feet by 7 feet area, then I taped that to the wall and projected the arrows onto it so I could trace them. The art studio had air conditioning but it took a while to work, so it was hot in there. I had once chance to get the proportions of the arrows right, and to make a sturdy enough stencil. After I traced the arrows I pulled the giant paper off the wall and onto the floor. I used masking tape to reinforce it along the traced lines, then used the dull scissors to carefully cut it out.
This took much longer than I thought it would take, I was overheating, and I still was so worried about the ladders. The scissors were tearing the paper so I had to be very careful. I didn't have the right tools, and in a sweaty moment of defeat my emotions took over me. Here I was making a stencil of masking tape and paper, and I didn't even know if it would work or if I'd be able to climb high enough to use it. I started crying. I lay down flat on the floor in the middle of the studio. What the hell was I thinking? I just surrendered and sweated and cried softly, thinking I can't do this. I give up.
I let myself cry for a few minutes, then I just lay there quietly and breathed. A thought popped in to my head; I really need a straight edge and a razor to finish cutting this out. Then an odd thing happened. I sat up and turned my head to the corner of the room behind me, and my eyes landed on a metal yardstick. The perfect straight edge that I needed. I walked to grab it, and without thinking my head turned again, this time across the room to the bottom shelf of a coffee table that had a few little baskets of remote controls and random things. I walked to the shelf and my hand picked up one of the baskets. Nestled in between two remote controls was a razor.
I had been working in this studio the previous three weeks and had never seen either of these tools.
I thought, hot damn, said a prayer of thanks out loud, and then made quick work of slicing out the rest of that stencil.
Manifesting Murals | PART 3: You're Gonna Need Help
This week marks the one year anniversary of painting my first murals. Two murals in 10 days, in fact. Prior to painting these murals in Austin, I had zero mural experience & no reason to believe I could pull it off. Following is the 6-part story of how I did it. [Read from the beginning.]
The next day, Sunday July 10th, Dana and I met Fabian at the auto garage to see the wall. The wall was white so I knew I wanted to paint black arrows on it. It was not unlike the very first mockup I had made.
Blank canvas
I considered placement and proportion. It was a tall, wide expanse of blank wall so it needed to be pretty big in order to look good. Fabian had ladders at the shop so that wasn't a problem. We decided the best bet would be to project the design on to the wall and "trace" over it. My friend Jeff said he had a projector at his house, it just needed an adapter to hook up to my computer. We all made a plan to meet the next night at sundown.
Dana and I headed to Home Depot for supplies. I bought one can of black paint and since I was so strapped for spending money, I bought maybe two or three of the cheapest brushes. Dana convinced me to buy a small plastic paint holder with a handle. I had to drive to Radio Shack to hunt down an adapter for the projector so I could plug it into my laptop. Each time I made a purchase, I had to ignore the doubtful voice that said You're wasting your time. You're wasting your money. Twenty-five dollars for an adaptor you'll use once??
The evening of Monday, July 11th, I gathered some pencils for tracing, grabbed some cold Topo Chicos and put on some clothes I didn't mind getting paint on. I picked up Jeff and his projector and drove to Fabian's garage. Dana met us there. We put my laptop on a ladder, rigged up extension cords out to it and the projector and adjusted it til the arrows were just right. Jeff had to help me with a setting that stopped my laptop from going to "sleep" every 5 minutes. We used the pencils to do a light trace around the entire design, just in case we didn't get finished that night. Then it was time to lay down the paint.
I had to ignore the fear that I was about to ruin Fabian's building.
One thing I hadn't thought about was the fact that the wall was corrugated metal. That means it's wavy, and varies in depth. We were painting straight arrows on a wavy wall. If I'd really thought about this beforehand, I wouldn't have gone through with it. But I literally didn't think about it until I started laying the paint on. I had a flash of panic, envisioning wavy, unintelligible arrows that looked like wiggly mush from far away. But again, here we all were and I had committed to not doubting. I reminded myself an important lesson I'd learned when I used to do clothing alterations for people: trust what the materials are telling you, even if it doesn't make sense to your logical mind. As long as we painted what the projector was showing us, it should look right.
I took a deep breath and smeared some black paint on the white wall.
We were going to make this work. We had to.
I told Dana that I would do all of the tracing and outlining, and asked her to fill in my outlines with black paint. We stepped up and down the ladders, dragged them as we made progress, reached around each other and checked each other's progress. Fabian stayed with us and helped with moving the two A-frame ladders and reassuring us that it in fact looked right from far away. I'm no fan of ladders but once I started painting, the concentration took over and I didn't really think about how high up I was.
To my surprise, Jeff also stayed with us and Dana's friend Candice stopped by for a little while. I hadn't met her before, but she arrived with a smile and even helped out with painting inside my lines. I stepped back and took a breath, and couldn't believe that here I was, PAINTING A MURAL. And four other people chose to hang around and help. They were all participating in this mad idea that had popped in to my head. It was real. It was happening.
Around midnight, we were finished. We turned off the projector and looked at it from five feet away, ten feet away, a little ways down the street. Straight arrows on a wavy wall. It looked right. I painted a little signature, then we folded ladders, wrapped extension cords, closed paint cans and everyone went home.
That night I lay in the bed where I was housesitting. My body was exhausted from climbing up and down ladders, reaching, stretching and concentrating for five hours straight. But I was high. Totally high on having made something out of nothing, totally high because my experiment worked.