Top and left: Mundelein is… a Place of Peace… and Skating at Lions Field Skate Park, Mundelein, IL. Here is a Daily Herald article about the mural: “What an Artist Has Planned for Mundelein’s Next Public Mural”
Top: We Are All Connected, mural for the O+ Festival, on the playground wall of the Ulster County YWCA, in Kingston, New York. The phrase “we are all connected“ is the focal point, and was arrived in collaboration with the YWCA; it is surrounded by 20 beautiful birds and plants local to the Hudson Valley, executed in a vibrant, energetic, intuitive style. “We are all connected” is a signal of radical inclusion, intended to spark conversations about the notion of belonging and the value of biodiversity. Labeling the plants and birds provides a language and starting point for viewers to notice, appreciate, and cultivate the biodiversity around them, and feel connected to the earth, empowered with the knowledge of the identities of plants that have been used for food, medicine, etc. by humans for millennia. As Wendell Berry has said, “the earth is what we all have in common.”The birds serve additionally as symbols of joyful freedom and upward movement. The theme of the festival this year was “somewhere;” the “somewhere” depictedhere is a landscape in transition to utopia; rewilding is a perfect parallel to “somewhere” because it’s about creating habitat/sanctuary and maximizing diversity. Literally depicting the “peace and quiet and open air” of Stephen Sondheim’s “somewhere,” the mural is executed in a style that feels intimate, wondrous, weird, hopeful, and fun, in the tradition of Somewhere Alley.
Top: Atlanta Spring, mural in Atlanta, GA, featuring cedar waxwing (in Atlanta during winter and spring migration) and dandelions (with words for “dandelion” in Spanish, French, English, and Muscogee. This was a successful experiment in terms of both the highly textured wall surface and in attempting to create a largescale piece intuitively (without sketches/projection).