Mural Musing #3

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Buckets and Brooms

It wasn’t what I was going for, but it wasn’t bad.  Paul looked at the wall for a bit, more quizzical than critical.  “That’s fine,” he said.  “That will work.”

An old joke is perhaps the best explanation of what I think he really meant:


Johnny’s dad was working out in the garage when his young son came in and loitered by the workbench long enough to catch his father’s attention.
 
“Something on your mind son?”
 
“Sorta.”
 
“Well, come on. You know we can talk about anything.”
 
“OK, Dad. Where did I come from?”
 
Dad took a deep breath. He had been expecting this question. Kids grew up so fast these days. But, he had even done some reading: Father to Son, Solid Parenting, and the article Tell it Like it Is in "GQ". “Well son, when a man and woman fall in love it is just natural that they often want to have children and so . . . . .” And after about 15 minutes he finished off with “. . . and 9 months later the baby comes out of the birth canal into the world. And that is where you came from.”
 
His son is staring at him, wide-eyed. “Wow! That is so much cooler than Tommy’s answer!”
 
“What was Tommy’s answer?” asked the puzzled dad.  

“Tommy said he came from New Jersey.”

There is, I came to learn over the next couple of days, such a thing as too much information in transferring small square information to big squares.  What really served Paul best were the reference points of trees, trunks and branches.  “I’m just gonna take a broom and a bucket and splash some paint up there. I just need to know what spots to miss,” he told me.

That is in line with the whole kumquat and avocado concept.  But the truth was he really did just need those major reference points. The details of leaves and underbrush, sky and cloud, were distractions at this point.  As one of my daughters’ favorite childhood books puts it, simple pictures are best.  That was actually good news because creating those detailed “paint-by-numbers” squares was incredibly time consuming.  I could understand why it took Michelangelo four years to do the Sistine Chapel.  Why, the amount of time he must have spent tearing masking tape alone must have been staggering. So I pulled back to simple pictures like these:

I mentioned in the last post that Paul and I bring different skill sets to the project.  To be quite truthful I could teach any of you to do what I have done – it is sheet metal work after all; exacting craftsmanship, but quite "learnable."  Paul’s skill set is also teachable – but only to a point.  Go to any craft fair or public “art show” and “painters” will present their wares, and yes, you can tell that that is a picture of a puppy with a pear – sort of.  Paul’s skill set is far beyond “skill”  -- “a gift,” would be a better descriptor.  That is not to say that it is not the result of years of hard work.  But, as I often have to point out to my students, I cannot evaluate you on the basis of how hard you worked.  That might have been germane in back in K through 12, but here, at the university, I can only evaluate you on the basis of what you produce with your effort.  No, it doesn’t seem fair that some folks seem to be able to produce great work with little effort, while others struggle mightily to achieve mediocrity.  It is not fair, but it is the way of life.  The secret is to discover those places in your own life where ability and desire intersect.

Such an intersection is unfolding in our foyer.  I have spent a goodly amount of time in Paul’s studio and workshop.  I have taken my classes there on occasion to listen to him talk about making pots, painting and building guitars.  But the amount of time I have actually watched him work is surprisingly limited.  It is a special experience.  As he approached today's tasks, I was first taken by his lack of movement.  He looked at my drawings on the wall for awhile.  He sipped the coffee, that was my job to prepare.  Then he got out his paints and brushes. And, despite my humming several bars of The Sorcerer's Apprentice,  neither brooms nor buckets made an appearance.  Instead, Paul took his original reference painting and propped it up beside the wall.  And then he stared at the wall.  Next he stared at the drawing.  One and then the other – like this:

Eventually he took off his hat and picked up the brush.  What has followed over the next few days was, in my mind, quite magical.  And we will go there in the next post.
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Mural Musing #2

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Drawing on the Wall

Oft-times, when the four of us are pushed back from the table, enjoying the evening winding down, one of us will inquire, rhetorically, “I wonder what the sheet metal workers are doing tonight?”

For a younger crew, it would be a query in more-than-questionable taste.  However, when you consider the 200-odd years of life pulled up around the table, the shading becomes more thankful than demeaning.  Deprivation in postwar Europe, daybreak - and into the evening - stints running a restaurant, lonely watches in the bowels of an aircraft carrier, mind-numbing hours at a grinding wheel in a noisy factory – we have, collectively, “been there and done that.”  We actually know what it is like to fall into bed at the end of a long day of hard, physical labor.  We respect and appreciate the "daily grind" that is necessary to sustain the world in which we live.  So, for us, the refrain “I wonder what the sheet metal workers are doing tonight?” is a grateful acknowledgment that, while no one knows what tomorrow may bring, for tonight at least, study and work and luck have combined to bring us to the easier lives that we enjoy and appreciate.

All of which is prologue to my assertion that drawing on the wall is part of the 'sheet metal work' of painting a mural.  It is, in theory, not all that hard.  You begin by taking the image to be transferred onto the wall and laying a grid over it.  OK, that’s not difficult, especially for a Photoshop geek like me.  The process involves digitizing the image that is to become the mural.  Then you look at its dimensions in pixels, and compute the size of the squares you want to form the grid on the image.  For us, the scanned image was 4000 pixels and the wall was 10 feet on a side.  Nice numbers because that meant that if you constructed a grid of squares that were 400 pixels on a side, you would have squares that would correspond to 1 square foot of the final mural.  So, again in Photoshop, you create a square that is 400 pixels on a side and save it as a “pattern.”  You open the reference image, create a new layer and “fill” it with your pattern, which gives you your image with a grid, and Ta! Da! Here it is!

OK, so now I have this cool image in my computer but still have no answer to the question, “Have you begun to draw on the wall?”  To move from digital space to the actual wall, it is essential that you create a grid to the wall.  We did that with a large level and straight edges and T-squares of a variety of sizes.  And that, of course, brings us back to the star-studded walls pictured in the last post.  Once we had located the corner of each square, we stuck a star at the intersection.  That gave us a foot square grid on the wall that corresponded to the image with the 400 pixel grid. 

Still, you sense the problem do you not?  One image is a picture on a 14” x 17” piece of paper.  The "target" is a 10’ x 10’ blank wall with stars stuck on it.  I'm looking for the twain to meet here, and the solution is not immediately obvious.  I searched the wall in vain for an “insert image” button.  Nothing.  I searched Photoshop for a “paste image to wall” function.  Again, nothing.  It soon became clear that this was the point where I was supposed to “draw on the wall.”  I called Paul.

“What should I use to draw on the wall?” I asked, deciding to stay with the basics.

“Do you have a kumquat?” he asked.  Sometimes Paul’s rather quirky sense of humor is one of his most endearing characteristics.  This was not one of those times.

“No, but I have a couple of avacados,” I replied.  Two could play at quirky.

“Well, use those if you can’t find a pencil.”

“A regular pencil?”

“Yes, in lieu of fruit.”

Now, I know the general concept that lies behind the grid method of enlarging an image.  You don’t draw the whole thing all at once; you do it a square at a time.  Transferring the contents of the small square into the big square.

“So how do you replicate the little square in the big square?” I asked.

“You look at the little square, and sketch the stuff in the little square into the big square.  I usually work with an area about the size of a card table top .  .  .  .”

It should be clear by now that Paul and I are bringing very different skill sets to this project.  I had no idea what he was talking about.  It was as if I had said to him, who has never to my knowledge turned on a computer, “Take that picture on your easel, digitize it and upload it to the client.”  We were talking different languages and I was obviously on my own. Back to Photoshop.

I decided to copy each section of the grid and turn it into a separate image.  This, for example, is square 56:

Then you add a layer to the image and, using your graphics tablet, you trace the outlines of the major features of the square and note the color and shading characteristics, like this:

Finally you remove the actual image behind the tracing and you get an image that looks like a paint by numbers kit, like this:

So cool! But now I had to print the squares on 12 x 12 inch sheets of paper.  Well, wander through your neighborhood art supply store and you will discover that this is not a standard size.  You have to go to 14x17 to get 12 inches on a side, and then you cut the rest away.  There were 100 squares – I figured my paper cost at about 2.5 million dollars.

However, in the garage we had several stacks of blank newsprint left over from packing when we made our escape from the loft.  I discovered that a little work with a large T-square, a metal straight edge, and my trusty Excel knife would yield 4 12x12 sheets from a single sheet of newsprint.  More amazing was the fact that the rather flimsy paper would feed through my Canon i9900 printer.

This is probably a good time to mention that it is always a bad idea to think about how much effort and time will go into any large creative project.  Focus on the fun and the long-range goal, and the actual number of lines you have to trace, draw, and incise, will fade from terrifying to a minor inconvenience.

So, following that process of selective 'effort denial",  not too many hours later I was able to tape images up on the first wall, matching the squares on the grid image with their appropriate “star corners” on the wall.  When you do that you get a “hanging paper” version of part of the mural, like this:

The next step is to gently lift each paper square and mark, with a kumquat, avocado or pencil, the points where lines meet the edges of the squares.  With those "anchor points" it actually does become possible, using the time-honored "peek and sketch" method, to put the content of the enlarged small squares on the paper, into their corresponding large squares marked on the wall.  It looks like this:

I have done that to a large portion of the first wall.  Tomorrow, Paul arrives with paint, brushes, etc., to inspect my work and begin putting paint on the wall.  Fingers crossed!
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Mural Musing #1

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“So, have you started drawing on the wall yet?” he asked. The very idea was absurd, and just a bit frightening.  To understand why, you must return with me to begin at the beginning .  .  .  .

When you look around inside our home, you see more art than wall, shelf or table top.  Art is interesting; blank surfaces are not.  Although we have never really discussed the idea, it is obvious that we share the notion that one’s home should be a visual adventure – well, maybe not an adventure.  In his memoir, The Education of a Wandering Man, Louis L'Amour asserts that "adventure" is simply a romantic word for troubles in the past.  Trouble becomes an adventure only when it is over and one is safely home again.  So, let us say, rather, that we believe one’s home should be a visual feast – a morsel here, a main course there, dessert across the room; but never the dull expanse of an empty plate.  We like living in space that engages the roaming eye, where an unexpected dialogue begins with every glance.

Murals and frescoes are the natural extensions of that inclination - wrap around art, if you will.   I have twice completely covered the walls of small rooms with murals.  Delightful experience.  Varied outcomes.   Additionally, we like trompe l’oeil.  I mean it falls naturally within the oeuvre . Why not have a wall that is a painting that “tricks the eye” into thinking that it is neither wall nor painting?  Besides, our front door opens right onto a small entry foyer that steps up into the living room past two doors – a powder room and a closet.  It has always felt a touch cramped. So nibbling in the back of our head has always been the thought, “What better place than the foyer to make walls disappear into a painting of somewhere else?”  The images below are of the "pre-mural" foyer.  Work has, however, already begun, as can be seen by the little star stickers on the walls.  Their purpose will become obvious over time :-)

There were, however, a couple of major considerations.  First, done well, trompe l’oeil is very cool – almost transformational.  Done poorly, it looks as if a nine-year old Jackson Pollack has been turned loose with magic markers and way too much chocolate. And when you actually paint something on the wall – well, it’s not like you can move it into another room. There it is.  The two murals I have done were in playful spaces, and even there were short-lived.  This is the first –

It was done five or six years ago in the powder room of an art gallery, in which I was a partner.  The gallery was a neat idea, but never actually opened.  I haven’t gone by to see what became of the space.  I sincerely doubt the mural remains.  Here is the second –

This was done in one of the bathrooms in the loft where Christine and I lived for a short while just after we were married.  The whole loft experience we attribute to aliens beaming strange messages into our brains.  We were able to unload it shortly before the recent funky mortgage induced financial meltdown.  Strangely, the buyers requested I return the bathroom to basic, boring, white.

Our current residence is more formal - definitely not funky.  A mural in this environment needs to be done by a “real artist” in a fine arts, primarily representational, style.  It is far beyond my playful attempts.  Unfortunately, a 10 x 10 foot mural by a real artist would cost about a year’s salary.  So our trompe l’oeil foyer remained a recurring daydream – until recently.

You see, among our dearest friends are Paul and Kiki Minnis, and Paul is one of them there "real artists."  I mean this is an incredibly talented guy whose paintings hang in museums, galleries and private collections throughout the country.  His pots are similarly honored, and he has recently taken to building classical guitars – in his spare time, when he isn’t providing the music with his accordion, which he plays in restaurants and dance halls around town – he once played his beloved squeezebox in white tie and tails with the North Carolina Symphony orchestra.  So far as I can tell, the only indication that he is 15 years my senior lies in the fact that one night when we were all sitting around after dinner, drinking wine and telling lies, I mentioned the mural concept and he said, “That’s interesting.”  Talk about your senior moment of epic proportions!

Paul has painted murals before – the 200-foot long "sky mural" in the American Airlines terminal here in Raleigh is his work.  But for some reason, the idea of our little mural, running up the stairs and across two doors appealed to him.  The idea festered for a few months, in his mind and ours.  We finally decided to ask Paul to recommend one of his students who might be willing to talk with us about our project.  We assume that the aliens were beaming messages into his brain that night because he said, “You know, we could do this together.”

Several more dinners and a lot more wine later, we agreed to enter into this project.  We would provide the materials, food, praise and solace; he would provide the artistic talent, and I would become his apprentice/slave/gofer, etc., etc.

Not long after that night, we were over at Paul and Kiki’s for dinner [yes, we do spend a lot of time eating dinner together] and he asked us to step out into his studio to take a look at some “concept sketches.”  We were thrilled, and eventually the maestro settled on the image below as the one he wanted to paint:

It is the creation of that mural that I will chronicle in the Mural Musings portion of The Wall.  I hope you enjoy the journey.  All of which, of course, takes us back to the beginning.  .  .  .

It was a couple of weeks after Paul had given me the “concept drawing,” and I had stopped by their house, which is close to campus, to share a small Codder and wait for the traffic to clear.  We gathered around the table in the kitchen, shamelessly feeding the dog people food and quietly sipping our beverages when he said, “So, have you started drawing on the wall yet?”  It was what I believe football coaches refer to as a “gut check” moment.  We’ll see how it goes .  .  .  .
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Art Show Orphans

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I went to the 41st Annual Carolina Designer Craftsmen’s Fine Craft and Design Show this weekend.  Ordinarily I go to the “Pre-opening” on the first day of the exhibition.  People sip free wine of indeterminate vintage and the air buzzes with a gently affected anticipation.  It is all quite festive. This year other obligations took precedence and I barely scurried in before closing on the last day.  I found it a strangely melancholy experience with a touch of the forlorn.  The unsold goods peer from the shelves like the unclaimed children of orphan trains.  Found wanting and unwanted, they preen with self-conscious bravado as craft roadies begin to circle the display floor with packing blankets and masking tape.

Some exhibitors still muster a bright smile, “If you have any questions, I’ll be glad to answer them.”  Others fold themselves into director’s chairs designed by some lesser student of Giacometti, legs dangling, their eyes tired and unfocused.  Their gaze shifts to the orphans perched upon the shelves or left lingering, garish, under glass.  Affection fights disappointment.  The leftovers will be gently wrapped and packed away to be defrosted for the next show, the next town, the next season.  But, oh, if only they had found a home, if only they had left the building in the hands of someone new for whom they were unique and truly lovable.

“We’ll be closing in thirty minutes.  Exhibitors should refrain from packing until then,” booms the man behind the curtain.  “We’d like to thank everyone for their help in making this year’s exhibition such a success.”

Despite those instructions to the contrary, booths begin a subtle deconstruction while their keepers avoid complicity by slipping on varying guises of inattentive nonchalance.  The concession stand windows rasp rudely down as, behind the scenes, rainbows of silk, ceramics and glass cascade into anonymous cardboard cartons. Countless hours of exacting, loving labor disappear into crumpled newsprint or are swaddled in bubble wrap, laid to rest and taped securely, rip and sigh.

The trip home must, it would seem, start in exhalations of blended relief and recrimination.  “Well, not bad I guess, given the economy and all. But, still .  .  .  .”  It seems an unforgiving way to make a living, hawking the products of your heart to throngs often ignorant of the incredible investment of energy, artistry and effort represented by each piece – as individual as a snowflake.  But then, I choose to imagine, they drive through a burst of Maxfield Parrish light that ignites the last of autumn’s finery and they think, “I could capture that, in glass, on canvas, in wood or in the kiln.  Hmm, maybe when I get home I’ll try to use .  .  .  .” 

More orphans in the making, thank goodness.
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