‘A MURAL IN PROGRESS’
INCLUDES NARRATIVE BY MURALIST PETER GESELOWITZ
Written by Halina Geselowitz
(assistant muralist, manager & wife)
Mr. B, a long-term client and major property
developer, commissioned four trompe l’oeil murals for his award-winning
Historic Arcade Restoration Project on US Hwy 1 in
 |
| Restored
Historic |
THE PROJECT – This 4th and final wall, the most visible of all the mural sites, is opposite the county courthouse and borders on a busy stretch of US Hwy 1. The surrounding buildings were demolished and a fire escape was added before the artist saw exactly what surface features he would be working with. We had already completed two murals on the opposite side of the complex and everything needed to be tied together.
Peter (the artist) said
“The imploding on the north of
the block revealed the surface that would receive the bulk of the
public’s attention.
Everyone traveling
Being at the
site is the first step; seeing, feeling the wall; putting my back to it
and thinking about the angles it’ll be seen from, and how the shadows
change with the movement of the sun.
Projecting what rush-hour will be like; walking around, checking
out the locals; who shops/works/lives there; what do I know about them?
A lot of it I consciously make a note of, but I also just stand there
and let my senses absorb sounds and smells and colors for reference
later on. Then I go home,
draw-up the list of factors that will carve-out the basic shape and work
on establishing the overall concept in my mind.”
TECHNICAL REQUIREMENTS:
- Create interest and curiosity to entice viewers inside the mall
- Attract attention from as many angles/heights and distances as possible
- Beautify and 'complete’ the restored building
- Disguise the awkward stairwell (no public access)
- Feature name & dates and include historic medallions
- Maintain identity consistent with the other murals
AESTHETIC
REQUIREMENTS:
For the Client: - Communicate a warm, wholesome, old-fashioned & happy theme
For the Public: - Promote cultural appreciation with stimulating, intriguing & thought-provoking art
- Improve neighborhood’s image and give city center a positive identity
- Create shopping and tourist attraction
For the Artist: - Think-up THE best solution for the client's wall and be absolutely original
- Impress, reward, astonish and astound everyone (even the art critics!)
Peter said “Once
I see that outline clearly, am comfortable within the boundaries and
sure it’s a sensible structure within which to operate, I can get on
with the thinking....
Peter said
“As soon as I started drawing I ran into a tantalizing mind-bender when
trying to picture the completed work as it would appear and change as
motorists approached, then passed by my wall at different speeds. I
found myself getting into the fourth dimension!
I obviously had to allow for the differing heights, for width and
depth... and now I had to consider time as well!”
The thinking, and hence the concept is the most important part of a successful mural. Incorporating classic trompe l’oeil techniques, each mural is custom-designed for that wall only (otherwise it’s just another poster or billboard). It took a month of research and conceptualizing to think-up ingenious ways to hide some areas and highlight others while making the ‘trompe’ work (see ‘Artists Bio’ for a description of the tantalizing Trompe L’oeil experience). The final color illustration we present to our client is as accurate as possible so there are no unpleasant surprises – for any of us!
Peter said “What I strove for was to outline a shape that would make sense out of the architecture, to somehow make every inch of the wall look as if it was designed to be there, with rational and aesthetic purposes in mind, you know, as if the form had been somehow related to the function.”
The completed mural illustration demonstrates how
the marketing, technical requirements and aesthetics have been
masterfully met. Mr. B
responded with awe and astonishment that such visual deception could be
created with paint. Our
challenge was to make his wall look even better than the illustration he
so admired.
PAINTING THE WALL - the scaffolding was precarious and scary, and many parts of the wall were initially inaccessible, making it difficult to draw construction lines. We started at the top with the roof tiles and architectural elements. My job as assistant muralist was to paint the roof tiles and all the straight lines while Peter, painting with one hand while holding on for dear life with the other, got creative!
Peter said
“Mural painting is not all fun.
This one nearly killed us over thirty-four days during
mid-summer, in boiling unrelenting heat and humidity, me with a torn
thigh-muscle from falling off scaffolding, both of us sick with a
stomach-bug, living with exhaust fumes and sirens and non-stop noise,
carrying water and paints up and down all day, washing brushes and
dripping with sweat from morning ‘til night.”
Once the upper portion had been completed, the
scaffolding was re-arranged and we continued downwards.
Already people were amazed by the life-like tiled roof and window
with the woman and child looking out.
Peter said
“Spent a lot of time climbing up and down the scaffolding to see how it
looked from various distances and angles, also driving round and round
the block to see the lines, then the colors change.”
Peter had one of the ship medallion replicas (an architectural decoration used all round the building) placed under the faux window and another on the stair landing, lowered by about two feet to help disappear the space above the parapet so the worker in the mural had something to ‘lean’ over.
The dog right next to the road attracts immediate attention, drawing the viewer’s eye up to the focal point. We used the awkward stairway walls (3 of them) to make the signage banner look as if it’s bobbing up and down as the viewers drive by. It’s beautifully convincing! Very Trompe!
Peter said
“The mural was painted using mostly half-inch brushes or smaller.
Only the large flat areas of columns and plain wall were done
with paint pads and rollers.
Put it down to my background as an oils painter, I don’t like to
use only one color even if the thing we’re painting is that color.
In my mind it’s made up of many different shades and I like to
show that.”
THE RESULT
Peter said “Planning three-dimensional art is, in essence, very easy to grasp; simply revolving around the fact that when you draw, for example, a circle on a piece of paper, then hold it at an angle, the shape changes. The hard part is getting the right ideas and then integrating every facet into a complete new whole. The span of your thinking has to basically cover everything, starting with the premise ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE”
BEFORE and…
… AFTER COMPARISON
THE RESPONSE
The mural took exactly six weeks to paint (as we had quoted), so in all it took 10 weeks from concept to finished product. Now we’ll go through all the initial requirements to see if we filled our brief satisfactorily.
Technical Requirements:
1. Create interest and curiosity to entice viewers inside the mall – the dog, the painted people, the amusing scenario and now the ‘trompe’ effect had the whole town talking.
2.
Attract attention from as many angles/heights and distances as
possible – people passing by kept coming back again and again,
trying to figure out the visual deception, and laughing when they did!
3. Beautify and 'complete’ the restored building – the ‘raw’ end walls of the partially destroyed complex had been architecturally corrected with creative ingenuity and original art.
4. Disguise the awkward stairwell (no public access) – it has been intriguingly hidden.
5. Feature name & dates and include historic medallions – done with aplomb!
6. Maintain identity consistent with the other murals – by echoing architectural elements, humor and artistic approach, this last mural tied the whole theme of the Historic Arcade together.
Aesthetic
Requirements:
For the Client:- Communicate a warm, wholesome, old-fashioned & happy theme
– Mr. B is very happy and uses the mural as a backdrop for photo ops (see News Articles)
For the
Public:- Promote cultural
appreciation with stimulating, intriguing & thought-provoking art
- Locals constantly thanked us for the fine art and claimed we had given the whole city a new identity.
Create tourist attraction - People applauded as they drove by and told us they bring their friends to see the murals instead of taking them to the ocean.
Improve neighborhood’s image - The downtown area has come alive again, after more than 70 years of dilapidation.
For the Artist:
Think-up THE
best solution for the wall to impress, reward and astonish everyone -
You be the judge!
Artist’s Assessment - Could I
have done better?
No, at that
time, under those conditions, clearly not.
Now, having done it, yes.
But since each mural is so individual in its form, every one
seems like it’s the first.
Clearly I do learn and get better with each one, yet not once have I
felt that “I’ve done this before”.
What did I learn (in particular)?
- That the
more complicated and multi-leveled the surface, the more fun, intense
and astonishing is the solution required to crack it.
- When you
paint a mural, have your own scaffolding put up because you need full
access to all parts of the wall at all times.
As we learnt on this project, there’s another hundred reasons for
having professional scaffolding (most have to do with safety and time).
To me, a committed artist and not a wall-painter, this is
integral; a mural is one unified whole which has to be painted like an
oil, with every part affected by and intended to affect every other
part.
Did I enjoy the experience?
Thanks to
the almost overwhelming public response, the general impression I have
is that it was the most fun I’d had in a long time
Pictures of
FUNNY ANGLES…
for the fun of experiencing a trompe mural you really can walk through!
