I took a motorcycle trip to Sarasota the other weekend. I got sunburned on the way down and rode through thunderstorms on the way back up. While in Sarasota I visited Angie and her boyfriend, and Aaron Persh and some other friends too. I retrieved a canvas from the school storage racks, which had been a monkey on my back for a little while. The canvas has a sketch of a nude model I'd been working with while at Ringling.
I'm working on this big wall at Fancy's Pets in Crystal River. It's about eighty feet long, by twelve high, with a deep stucco textured surface. The wall is going well. It's subtly stylized and it's been a kind of long term relationship, with big corrections, and moments of vivid inspiration. All in all I'm trying to keep my head on about it. Recently I emailed a picture of it to Shaun Thurston for critique, and he obliged with a long phone call, while I stood in front of the wall, and we talked about the painting and physics (light) and life. This is what creative community and friendship are all about.
I began working on Fancy's wall at different times of the day, and experienced different people (who get off work at a certain time, etc. ) coming to talk to me. Captain Tim came up to me and said I was his guy for a mural that he wanted on his building at Pete's Pier. On his suggestion I drew up a wall and bit an Al Parker illustration, pretty directly. I put in a day's work on it today. My dad bought the paint for it. My family has been really great about supporting my passion. The paint helped to hone in on the palette in efficient time. Captain Tim's giving me 200 dollars for the wall. The plan is to wrap it up tomorrow.
I've been talking with the City of Crystal River to do a mural in city hall. When I sat down for a meeting initially, I told them that I as basically doing Fancy's for the cost of paint, and they wanted that too. I asked if they wanted to pay me, and Molly (really, it was just a meeting with Molly) gave the empty promise of exposure, and I kind of said well I don't really need the wall. And then I kind of entertained the idea and kind-of rolled and apologized for being a diva, and said yeah, it could work. So I've been working on that sketch, and contacted a biologist for consultations regarding native flora and fauna, and have gone through revisions, and the city payed my way in to Three Sisters Springs Park for research, and it's been pretty good and I have a design in development. Now that I have a decent sketch, and also now that I've got two distinct paying exterior walls, I went back to the city and asked Molly for 200 dollars to do this mural, and otherwise I don't feel very motivated to do it. So I'm waiting on a call from them. I'm sitting on a good design, so I'm happy and sitting pretty.
That's it. Shaun pitched a wall in October for a mural festival in Jacksonville, to which I jumped. I think I'll have a mural portfolio I can stand by for a little while pretty soon. I'm twenty-seven years old now.
