Wednesday, July 20, 2011

grand schemes

Well I've finished up the two or three summer exhibits this year. Now I'm in the studio painting without any pressure. It is a little harder to do and a lot slower. Doing lots of looking and thinking about things.
In my thoughts, I discovered a grand idea. Something big. Real big.

I want to do a mural. Here in Boone, we are surrounded by culture and community. The Downtown Boone Development Association and the Watuaga Arts Council have done well with getting people excited about art with art crawls and sculpture installations in downtown. They have claimed and shown how public art is important to a striving community. But, all they have are sculptures. A lot of which are owned by ASU or part of the Rosen Sculpture competition. We need some color in this town. We need giant painted walls. Murals. Brighten up this old timey downtown. Be as big and as bold as we think we are.

So I've done a sketch. Rhododendrons in bloom plastered like urban graffiti across the blue ridge mountains. Rhodos, being the local flower/bush/tree, was the perfect subject matter. I imagine this huge. Larger than life.

So here it is. The sketch. Now we just gotta find some money for supplies and a big wall downtown that someone will let me work with.