Tag: Murals

Whatever Happened to. . . (Five items to satisfy your curiosity)

. . . the mural/graphics at the Three Rivers Historical Museum? You’ll have to attend the exhibit opening of Native Voices to see!

2. . . . the murals at the giant Catholic church in Visalia? After 13 months of much wrangling, negotiating, emails, phone calls, designs, rewriting of proposals, and rebidding, I withdrew my proposals. They’ll have to find someone else for this. (I’d show you my designs, but I don’t want anyone to kipe them.)

3. . . . the mural for a county library, mentioned back in August of 2022? Nothing. It was promised to me, then silence. A call to artists went out, I submitted my designs (because it expanded from one wall to two walls), then silence. The deadline for a decision passed (May 31), and the silence continues.

4. . . .my overgrown unmowed lawn? After the 5th summer of not mowing, hand trimming, transplanting, and fertilizing, it is looking quite nice. Now that it is mowed, I can see the gaps, and next year I will continue to transplant clumps as I find them at the back of the house where there used to be lawn.

5. . . . my gardening efforts once I started using an expensive humus, Deer Out, and milorganite fertilizer? Things look moderately better, although not magnificent. (Let’s remain in Realville, people!) This is the herb garden, fenced against deer, many plants with underground baskets against gophers, very poor soil, direct hot sun in summer, and zero sun in winter.

Any questions?

New Mural at Mooney Grove Park

About two and a half years ago, I worked on several murals on the outside of the Tulare County Museum at Mooney Grove Park on the south side of Visalia, California. Each day when I finished painting, I walked around that giant park of a zillion trees. As a muralist, I am always aware of blank walls, and I counted 7 concrete block restrooms, all painted white, all with multiple walls screaming for murals.

I photographed several of the buildings, photoshopped some of my paintings onto the plain buildings, then wrote up a proposal to present to a committee that meets 4 times a year. I also wrote a letter and asked to be on the next meeting’s agenda.

Then, The Plague struck. No response to anything I requested, no followup, nothing.

A few months ago, the Arts Consortium invited artists to submit five designs apiece, each proportioned to fit a 4×8′ horizontal mural. Five artists would be selected to paint a mural on a restroom. I submitted 5 ideas, and included my photoshopped versions for their visualizing convenience. (Always make it easy for the customer!)

Eventually, I got a congratulatory email saying my painting of the North Fork had been selected for one of the restrooms. Not my favorite, but I have painted and sold this scene about three times, so it seemed like a good candidate for a juried situation.

Next, I got instructions that all the muralists would be painting their restrooms on the same weekend, from a Friday through a Monday, and would be finished on that Monday, no exceptions, so there.

I looked at the weather, saw that Friday would be 104, contacted the nice man at the Arts Consortium and asked for a postponement or to be fired.

Being reasonable, he agreed that paint dries too fast in those conditions and went to the committee making the decisions.

We were then allowed to pick our own four day block to paint, and I chose September 21-24.

The forms began flying back and forth, along with a visual to remind me which painting had been selected, and a photo of it on “my” restroom wall.

Excuse me??

All-righty-then! So, I will be painting Yokohl Creek, which might indeed be my favorite. (GREEN!!)

Supposed to begin tomorrow, but many of the project details have been fluid, so time will tell. . .

mural Murals tulare county mural

Day Six on Indoor Murals

Mr. and Mrs. Customer sent a photo of the mural to their son who said, “Dad, be careful you don’t trip on those rocks!”

This time I started at the bottom of the stairs, adding texture to the boulders, along with more lichen.

Then it was time for the flowers to start blooming. Mr. Customer said, “This is a magical place, and all the flowers bloom at the same time.” That gave me the freedom to put in every foothill wildflower that came to mind.

I finished the carnival of colors, and moved to the other side of the stairs. The sequoia mural that I painted 10 years ago is on the right-hand wall leading down.

My instructions for this wall are simply a manzanita shrub.

Mrs. Customer requested blooms on the manzanita. Mr. and Mrs. Customer have asked many times for me to be sure to sign and date every one of these mini murals.

I told them to live with it all for a few days. This gives them a chance to ponder any ways to make it fit their vision better. They have great suggestions and have been right every time.

Next time, I will put blooms on the manzanita, maybe add some more leaves above and behind the bannister, fulfill any correction or addition requests, and sign everything.

indoor mural Murals

Growth, part eight (Getting big)

Back when the mural project began in 1996, I had no intention of learning to paint. There was a vague distant dream with no tangible plan for getting there. The dream was painting a mural in Exeter of Mineral King but much had to be learned first. So, learning to paint with oil, getting better at landscapes, then gradually increasing the sizes of my paintings became the plan. After getting comfortable with a paintbrush, I had to learn to use acrylic paint. It is not as easy for me as oil, but I’m catching on!

Murals

Exeter’s Mural Project

In 1996 the small town of Exeter, California embarked on a journey to create an outdoor art gallery. At that time the town was slowly dying commercially. There were always parking spaces available in front of business on the main street, there were many empty spaces available for rent, there were very few shops and fewer places to eat. There was a desire to do something and many random ideas but no central theme or person with passion willing to stick his neck out and pursue an idea.

The idea of murals was brought to me by three separate and unrelated individuals at different times. Suddenly things began happening at a rapid pace and the city council voted to hire a consultant to teach us how to become a mural city. Through a series of odd coincidences, I was made the president of the group. I knew nothing about such things, so I surrounded myself with folks who did know how to make things happen. I had nothing to lose (except perhaps my struggling art studio), so I poured myself wholeheartedly into the task of turning Exeter into an outdoor art gallery.

We tackled the process of laying the foundation for Exeter, A Festival of Arts by writing job descriptions, by-laws, contracts with artists, contracts with wall owners, gathering photos, learning about artists, and fund-raising, always fund-raising. It was exhausting at times, but I knew that Exeter had two choices: get cute or die. Although I have never lived in Exeter, I truly love that town! Sometimes people would ask me when I was going to paint a mural, and I’d laugh and remind them that first, I didn’t know how to paint, and second, the Mural Team’s by-laws prevented any of its members from profiting from the project.

In 2002 I closed my Exeter studio and moved into a little building at home in Three Rivers. This move meant I could no longer be on the Mural Team, but I never lost my interest in the project. Three years ago I started oil painting, last year I learned how to paint murals, and in February of this year I began painting Exeter’s 26th mural.

Today the town is vibrant, alive, busy, interesting and full of visitors coming to see the murals, the shops and the restaurants. Buildings have been renovated, parks and street corners and even alleys are landscaped, a gallery and museum have been added, and the town continues to thrive. Other towns in the county have tried to imitate Exeter’s success, but there is a specialness to Exeter lacking in other places. It may be the size, the history, the pride, the level of education, or the combination of all those elements, but in my opinion Exeter is the star of Tulare County.

Meanwhile, the fund-raising continues. Murals are expensive to prepare, paint and maintain. Exeter, A Festival of Arts has never sought grants, but has generated all its own financial support. And here is the real question: would you like to participate? Visit Exeter’s murals, and decide if you’d like to join in this worthy project. The Mural Team (I REFUSED to let us be called a “committee”) is using the opportunity of a Mineral King mural to raise more funds. (Don’t worry, I am getting paid with or without your donations.) Contributions are tax deductible. Details on how to donate and an informational letter about the current letter may be found on the Mineral King web site in the documents section: http://www.mineralking.net/documents/ExeterMural.pdf

Exeter Murals

The Wall

First published in January 2009

Look at this!!! Holy Guacamole!

Exeter murals Murals

Breakthrough!

First published in January 2009

This little gem is a sneak peak at the Giant Project, known hereon as GP. Why am I teasing you with this? Because I have had a victory and want to share it! I have been fighting my paint and brushes, trying like crazy to get them to do what I want. I struggle along, wondering if I will ever learn to paint properly, wondering why I can’t get anything to do what I request, wondering why no matter how many hours spent it still looks like a dog’s breakfast.

On Sunday a.m. a bottle of linseed oil appeared on my front porch with a note from my 6th grade teacher. (He signed it “Tom S.” and I thought it was from someone I know here in town because I always think of my 6th grade teacher’s first name as “Mr.”, not “Tom”, for goodness sake!)

Like the good girl that I try to be, I wrote him a thank you note and wondered if I would ever have a use for linseed oil in painting because my earlier attempts at using it have been crap less than satisfactory. It left random shiny spots on the painting which I tried to ignore, and then a well meaning friend said, “I like this painting but it has shiny spots on it”.

Then I learned about some special recipe from the teacher at the junior college where I soldiered through half a semester of a painting class 2 years ago. (I sort of knew he and I weren’t a good teacher-student match when he said to me “The trouble is, you don’t know how to draw!” Okay, thanks for that helpful tidbit Mister, but I am about to have an opening of a solo show of my drawings so your opinion of my abilities is crap less than satisfactory.) Anyway, this special recipe also made random shiny spots and was weird to use, sort of sticky and it made the color too weak, and I could see no point to using it. Maybe if I had stayed the entire semester I would have learned how to solve this problem, but it seemed that staying home to paint was a better use of my time than driving 80 minutes round trip for each class that was mostly just easel time with bad light and bad rap “music”.

Meanwhile back at the ranch, I bravely went out to the easel, determined to master this problem of misbehaving paint and WHAM! into my brain came the idea of linseed oil from Mr. S. (the good teacher who taught me how to draw but denies it saying I already knew. . . go figure! I knew how to draw in 6th grade but somehow forgot through my career of drawing?)

Knowing things on the easel couldn’t possibly get any worse, I tried the linseed oil mixed with the paint and it was MAGICAL! It was fabulous! All I can say is THANK YOU GOD for sending Mr. S by with that linseed oil, even before I knew it was needed so desperately!

Murals