Giant Garden Mural - start to finish
The most exciting project I got to work on in 2017 was my largest painting yet. Heirloom Flats, a brand new apartment/condo complex in Bloomfield, CT hired me to create a mural for their lobby. The theme of the building is "modern farmhouse style." Think fresh organic community garden, rescued and rehabbed barn wood, living wall of plants, a giant grill-zebo, and a library stocked full of cookbooks. My project was to make a plant/garden based mural that was bright and fresh and huge.
Start to finish, from brainstorming to install the project took 6 months to complete, I just finished installing yesterday, November 9. Let's take a look at the project:
Here are my original concept sketches - I wasn't sure if I wanted to do a long skinny work or something tall and massive (I went with tall and massive). But I had been thinking of just jam packed, overgrown with flowers and leaves and plants and vegetables.
I settled on an ultimate size (15' wide x 8' tall) painted on unstretched raw canvas with acrylic paint. I paint on the floor, so I unrolled the canvas, which covered most of the studio floor and got to work:
To help gain inspiration as I worked, I decided to listen to Walden by Henry David Thoreau as I worked. Some stand out quotes that I wrote down that felt applicable to the project at hand:
“Making the yellow soil express its summer thought in bean leaves and blossoms.”
“Not until we are completely lost or turned around do we appreciate the vastness and strangeness of nature.”
“For I was rich, if not in money, in sunny hours and summer days and I spent them lavishly.”
Ok, now we are ready for install! It was suggested by a friend that I should hide things in the picture - his particular suggestion, an aardvark. There isn't one, or is there?
It was a bear to install - it's so big! But in the end we finally got it up:
Officially titled Overabundance. It is located in the lobby next to the elevators and the gym/exercise area of Heirloom Flats, located at 25 Jerome St, Bloomfield, CT.