MURALS
My mural work gave me roots in performance (as people watched me work), also I began to see the institutation as a frame for the work. When I work on a wall, it is different than a canvas painting...not just the size...a mural is 'part' of the arhcatecture. This later pushed me toward installation art.
The Innerchange Mural
The Innerchange Coffee House was in Pacific Beach. It was a cafe and music venue ran by Nancy Porter & Ron in the early 90's. I painted this mural, but also did many other jobs at the cafe like painting their name on the roof, illustrating their menu and even making coffee as a barista. During this time, I lived in my VW bus and surfed daily. The mural was too large to capture in one photo.
I painted this mural over the course of one year. Basically, I started with a giant radial design...but each tiny piece of the radial was an egg. Each day one of the eggs would hatch...meaning I would paint a detailed image in its place. This mural was so long in space that no one could get a photo of the entire thing in one shot. And because it happened slowly over a entire year...it could not be captured in time either..it kept changing.
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As the eggs hatched, they would merge and weave together...in physical and conceptual ways. Eventually the mural blended right into the arctecture as jigsaw puzzle pieces became actual bricks on the right and rainbow trim on the left.
Much of the right side took on ocean elements as metaphors for politics and organized religion.
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I originally chose to do the mural over extended time in order give myself time to do it and as an attraction to the coffee shop...I thought people would come back to see what had hatched. But it worked better than I thought. People began to come watch me as I painted. I felt like a performance artist. Often I would converse with those who watched. Our conversation would change what I was painting. This surprise aspect is still my favorite.
The central orb used various imagery to explore concepts of psychology.
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'Every person has both a masculant and a femanin aspect'.
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'Reinforcment', 'Fear of death begots creativity', and 'Actualization' were themes I worked from in the cenral orb.
The left side became socielogy merging into spirituality.
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Themes here ranged from Jungian Theory to Tranindentalism.
This image isn't large enough to see that it says "R.E.M. Locamotive" on the side of the train...as it pulls beds full of dreamers along.
Mortal Coil
Most of the documentation from this floor mural was sadly lost.
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It was a carefully plotted golden spiral made from multicolored people. Painted on the concrete patio floor in front of the Hairgasm Salon. It created the illusion of a deep hole that you might also fall into. |
Grasping
Grasping was a mural done for Nancy Porter. It was a combination of actual objects and painting.
Wants & Needs
This mural was at "Mystic by the Sea" It was a Wicca shop on Adams Avenue of San Diego. It sold a wide variety of herbs, beautiful knives, staffs and rare books. At this time, I was living in a garage just off Adams...must've been about 1993.
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This mural was a focused meditation on the wants and needs of humanity. |
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The crane is my favorite detail, it is regarding inovation.
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The owner asked that I paint a portrit of him, so I put him on a tarot card. |
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The black spots around the scarab are my thumb prints. |
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A ladder twisted through the piece... |
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The ladder wrapped around the tree of humanity and became kissing snakes. |
The tree top is individually detailed feathers, so many details are lost in photo. The jagged blue and black shapes near the hand are broken clocks.
