new murals at stormfront productions

i painted a few different murals for Stormfront Productions here in lafayette last night and then again this afternoon.  i was honored they asked me to create in their space, and it's an awesome space.  the office is housed on the top floor of the fountain trust building on the corner of 3rd and Ferry.  it's a beautiful, old, brick flour mill, actually.  the office space is surrounded by soft brick walls, big windows, and original wooden structural beams.  it was a great place to get to install.

i started with a robot character mural in the main co-working space.  the painting features a cast of robots looking in different directions and doing robot things.  this is the main space, so i wanted to create something fun and welcoming, and the robots are certainly that.  plus they are quite interesting, because of all of the detail in the patterns and gears.

i also painted a formerly very boring white wall in an office.  the wall sits behind the owner's desk and i thought i should create something like an updated take on the classic office cityscape.  i made a 5 foot wide stencil of downtown lafayette, looking down from union st.  the fountain trust former flour mill, is situated toward the center in red.  i laid down a ghost print in grey with the stencil, then i painted in all of the color by hand, trying to keep the lines loose and expressive.  i added the river and the railroad tracks and more of the landscape outside of the stencil.  then i put the stencil back up and sprayed in the black.  i really like this image, and i really like the blownout abstraction underneath the stencil: that clean edge of the black contrasting with the expressive strokes of color.  this is the first place it's been painted, but i may have to use it again.

the third and final piece i did was in the conference room. the space was challenging to work in.  there's a weird hole in the wall with a pair of legs hanging out and the shape of the room and the overhang of the drop ceiling really enclose the space in what is an otherwise very open and airy place.  so, i felt like my challenge was to create something that gave some air to the room and some depth the space.  so i painted a skyscape of an approaching storm.  i built up layers of billowing clouds and a rising cumulonimbus column that trails off into a few puffy high clouds in a blue sky above a low horizon landscape.  the clouds are interspersed with stenciled pattern fragments and the blue sky in the background has a subtle damask pattern.  there's a row of power lines and a few birds hanging out in the corner.

Smile :)

Zach bought me new lens for my camera ...

so I roped him and the cat into posing for me!

Paper Snowflakes (to mark the end of summer)

Zach and I have always loved cutting paper snowflakes. We roped in family members to help cut hundreds of them for our December wedding. Last year, we cut up a whole bunch for the winter display at Artists' Own. But lately, we've really taken the art of paper snowflakes to new levels of coolness! We cut a fancy bunch for Becoming Place Becoming Human.

On Monday, I spent the afternoon cutting out a kitty-themed snowflake as suggested by my friend, Juanita (of JuanitaTortilla). I gave it a floral border, and used cats, potted plants, leaves, a house, petunias, butterfly, and four-leaf clovers to fill in the space. Two hours and a painful callous later ...

the word "meow" is inverted in places, my four-leaf clover looks like an inverted butterfly, my potted plant (which was supposed to look like a flower) looks like a pot plant, and my snowflake is square!

Small Spaces: TEAD and RAWR

on friday, TEAD and RAWR from Detroit stopped in town to add their touch to the small spaces project.  They were on their way to Indy to participate in the SubSurface Graffiti event in Fountain Square, and made a short detour to come to Lafayette.  They spent the better part of the day installing on the backside of the Lafayette Theater, adding the first bit of graf writing to our project.

There's more to come, but i'm proud to be able to bring these guys to town.  They have worked with some of the top street artists on the scene, and to have their style in our city, is a great connection.

tour bus: traveling broke and out of gas (part 2)

 Zach and Patrick finished painting the "Traveling Broke and Out of Gas" tour bus today.

This second side features band members, fist of beets, thicket, a sign that says "you're being watched," and the words "Straight Veggie Oil," because, well, this cool bus is fueled by waste veggie oil!


p.s. check out the other side of the bus here.

No TV Tuesday

Last night, Zach and I tried something new. We decided we were not going to turn on the television for the entire day. We'd read, take a walk, contemplate life, or work on something fun. Basically, it was a challenge to ourselves to do something other than waste our lives rotting in front of the television. We thought it would be hard, but in the end, we both rather enjoyed the quiet night.

I spent part of the evening on the phone with my mom. Afterwards, I read a book while watching Zach work on his new piece. A gigantic 3ft x 3ft linoblock. We had the idea that he should do a piece about the culture industry, so this is what he came up with ...

A large human head composed of brands, logos, and icons; the things we fill our minds and lives up with on an everyday basis. The result of a totally administered and capitalist modern society. Conformity, uniformity, homogeneity. The things we are so used to, that we don't question anymore.

It's funny how refreshing it is to take a break from the tyranny of mass culture. I'm not sure how long we can keep this up, but for the sake of our mind, body, and soul, (and because it was actually fun!) we're implementing No TV Wednesday today.

{harvest} Violet Prince Eggplants

These little bite-size beauties are Violet Prince eggplants from the only (egg)plant we kept after the hail storm. Can't wait to use them in a recipe this week!