I was commissioned to paint this mural for a house in Cow Hollow. The request was for the image of a Bison as a tribute to Boulder, Colorado (and which I also thought was appropriate considering the mural’s location).
Enlisting Klaus, we set about taping up and painting an abstract version of the Flatirons rock formation for the background. I then-
Nope. No, I then did nothing else.
I intended on drawing a giant Bison on this chunk of dining room wall, but never got the chance. It seems our patron was so pleased with the work, that he wanted us to leave it as-is, and paint him a separate artwork that is in keeping with the theme, but one that he can also take with him when he moves out of the house one day. How good is that? Keep ’em peeled for part 2!
Priming the background
Primed.
Tape
Tape
Taperoo
Cutting tape to make 3d pattern
Slow and steady
Somehow we managed to cut all the right bits, without error!
Over the last 2 years of living in the United States, I have been surprised by how often I am asked: “Do Australians celebrate Thanksgiving?”.
The enquirer usually figures it out immediately after the question leaves their lips, swiftly taking into consideration the origins of the holiday. This will generally be followed by a sheepish explanation of their mistake and a quick departure.
In the interest of staying relevant and on the pulse of popular culture. Wait. Let me start again. In a convenient coincidence, I have just finished a mural of foxes in the same week as the release of that catchy new hit single “The Fox (What Does the Fox Say?)” (dingadingdingding ding) touted as this year’s Gangnam Style – so you know it’s a ripper.
Finally someone (three former members of the Harvard Fox Club) let me paint a massive double-height wall in their residential home with the help of many pals, two big-ass ladders, a ton of nachos and the occasional beer. After drawing a shockingly vague sketch on an old cardboard box of how I wanted the geometries done, it took about a month (a few nights every week and a party) and here’s the progress:
Pascale taping
Klaus checking out his tape work
Painting party
Kramer and Katie helped us one night… But this is a picture of Kramer and Klaus
Big-ass ladders
After the tape came off… Crisp geometries
Krink pen for the foxes
Yep, little guy on the right is totally dreaming up those shapes.
An overwhelming number of people who came to see the mural commented how strikingly ‘3D’ it appeared in person. About 4 people. Such feedback pleased me as it is, after all, 2 dimensional pretending to be 3 dimensional. Which is not that many dimensions compared to how many we might actually be existing amongst according to string theory. Anyone who has ever wondered about space and time should watch the series The Fabric of the Cosmos: It’s fascinating.
Special thanks to all who helped: Klaus, Paul, Pascale, the 2 Canadian Alex’s, Katie, Kramer and all you cats at the post-masking tape party. And the landlord – for not spewing about it.
If you think this is the last fox post, buddy – you are wrong. All good things come in threes.
My life thus far has been a decoupage of mixed emotions and messages surrounding the common fox.
1. My mother hates them as they kill all the chickens and only eat one – necessitating her locking them in their coop every evening. She also used to go shooting foxes on farms as a young vet student.
2. My godmother’s family share the name Reynard and swathe their house in ornate figurines and tasteful imagery of delightfully mischievous, handsome foxes.
3. My favorite Dr. Seuss book was Fox in Socks… Which resulted in my ICQ name and first email address back in the 90’s (Wow. Just wow, that I just said that) being Fox In Sox. At hotmail of course. Also, I thought, what a foxy and appealing name to the pimply braces-clad boys who might court me via the internet in the hopes of sharing a bag of Wizz Fizz at the train station after school the next day; or more desirable even, that we might both be attending the same school-organised dance (I was enrolled at an all girls school, inter-school dances were our livelihood) where I would put on an impressive display of branding, upholding my web presence as the ‘fox in sox’ by donning a pair of knee-high rainbow socks.
4. I was also a big Roald Dahl fan as a kid, and frankly, Fantastic Mr Fox carried on like a complete jerk.
5. My closest family friend has a penchant for arctic fox fur, seizing any opportunity to travel to a climate cold enough and accepting enough for her to adorn herself in her plethora of luxurious wintry garments. Mind you, she’s in the Reynard family so I imagine that had some influence.
6. My most-viewed video on the internet to date involves Banjacks and Pervis (Anna Bennet and I) purchasing fox furs from a vintage store and wearing them while we have a spitting competition in the park. It’s called Vintage Furs.
So where does that leave me? Loving them? Hating them? Killing them? Filming them? Well I’m clearly thinking about them. And in doing so, Klaus and I noticed a flaw in the English language. Check it out:
One Ox, Two Oxen.
So…. I propose
One Fox, Two Foxen.
Come get some, Oxford dictionary. Or should I say, Oxenford dictionary.
Anyway, all this fox business came up as I’ve been asked to paint a fox mural with a friend from work this weekend. We shall name it Foxen and be paid in beer. Thus inspiring the following:
Who seriously does an architecture competition just out of the goodness of their heart without a boss breathing down their neck? Well, despite having 3 landscape designers drop out of our team of 5, Erik Kramer managed to keep me on deck to submit our crack at the San Francisco 280 Freeway comp. Most of our conceptual work was achieved over a bottle of vino and in the company of our replacement 3: my mother (as she visited SF – she offered practical nuggets), Dr Klaus (came for the dinner, stayed for the good times – he offered spurts of inspirational genius), and Casey (came for the dinner, and I think he left after that….?). Then, picture my sorry mug sitting in a Chicago hotel room, alone, at 3am the night before it was due…
Looks like toffee apple land. Anyway, the competition called for:
… concepts … that are made possible through the replacement of the elevated Highway 280 north of 16th Street with a surface boulevard.
So our design is all about re-use of materials and structure, engaging with vistas, and re-energising the community… by turning a freeway into a park and other assorted delicious elements. But I’m not so much the architectural lingo frother, so I’m linking you out here if you want to read more.
Basically, my passion lay in giving it a jazzy name… And as I ABSOLUTELY LOVED the recent Star Trek: Into Darkness flick (admittedly unexpected – Klaus had to bribe me to go see it), I had one of the most satisfying moments of self-entertainment when I came up with this one: Tar Trek: Into Parkness.
Just take a moment to mull that one over.
Yep. Pretty good huh. Especially when put next to my other suggestions (“double double soil and rubble”, “grassy promenade deluxe suite”, “crouching rubble, hidden elevator”, “I can’t get no fenestration”, “banana hammock”, “rocky slice of cheesecake”, “duck crossing”), you’d think I had a winner. However with a crude and blatant disregard of my – I’m going to say it – literary genius, it was submitted under “Bay City Stacks”. How vanilla. Albeit appropriate.
So I vanished from the interwebs for a couple of weeks – and for good reason, well three good reasons. The foremost being: I had no computer. Why? Well this mural above is largely at fault. So am I, but I would certainly prefer to put the blame on something inanimate who will wear it with far more grace than me. Yes – I was painting this mural with Klaus at [freespace] with my car parked out the front (“who parks a car in SOMA?!” – says everyone after the fact.) and my window got smashed, my trunk opened and my laptop and camera gear (among many other things) were flogged.
This is just a symptom of me being a huge noob in San Francisco. Yep, it’s a learning curve. Turns out everyone I mention my tale of woe to has had something stolen from them within the last year in this city. Most of them not lucky enough to have travel insurance and to end up with a faster-than-Usain-Bolt, higher-resolution-than-real-life, brand new macbook pro. Like moi. What a smug little bastard. There it is again. Lemons to lemonade. I do still find myself sans a decent camera, but that will come.
Anyway – the half-finished mural. It’s a collab with Dr Klaus again (although my mum who was in town last week (WHICH WAS EXCELLENT) did have a hand in mixing some colours for us) and there’ll be some ink on top. Perhaps the dripping whitewash will give you a clue…
… Okay the suspense is killing me. I’m thinking of drawing a cow on it.
We also did these posters that will be cut in half, branded and gifted as thank you’s for the good people who donated to the second month of [freespace]. We taped up some poster paper and when choosing colours, I suggested “let’s just do the whole thing gold”. No objections from Klaus.
In retrospect, the Dr Klaus/thedarclaud mural style may have been ominous – looking like smashed glass and all, one might say we predicted the theft from my car, Carlos. Which would make us clairvoyant. So my next post may be just purely tea leaf-based art.
Aaaaaaaand it’s done. Chicken mural – check… en mural.
The Pensive Poultry Collection’s Zen Hen? Glorified. Dr Klaus and thedarclaud? Creatively immortalised until they rent the building out to someone else and repaint the whole place white. Good thing I took some photos.
Massive thanks to [freespace] for giving us a wall to get clucky all over. Last night was the exhibition and fundraising party – the most bohemian of hoots. Full of LED lights, bubble machines, face paints – wow. It’s sounding more like a rave. It really was very bohemian. There was an organic veggie patch and a ‘parkcycle‘.
By the looks of the freespace july indiegogo campaign today, we’re going to have another month of it…. which translates to another mural! STRAP IN, BARNYARD FANS. Probably looking at some bovine related content next time around, so all you beef enthusiasts – brace yourselves.
Turning lemons into lemonade. Isn’t that just something. I think that I can attribute a good proportion of the successes in my life to exactly this.
The proverbial ‘closing a door and opening a window’.
And this time, it lead me to this mural I’m working on with Klaus.
It was a miserable drizzling day yesterday in San Francisco but we were still endeavouring to get to some free dance classes in Golden Gate Park. After a cascade of events that mounted against the dance class plan, we found ourselves heading to a ‘postcard festival’ in SOMA as advertised on fun & cheap. Turns out there is only one post card in the whole place, but it’s crammed full of artists and they’ve got a wall that they’re wanting us to work on for the [FreeSpace] exhibition on June 26th. HELLO LEMONADE.
So we rode our bikes through the rain today with a backpack full of paint (leftover from prop building for Winning Formula), masking tape and tupperware and laid siege on this wall with only a vague plan in place. And who dropped past while we were working? This suited-and-tied chap with some deep Patrick Bateman vibes. How’s Christian Bale playing Bateman and Batman? Only difference is the ‘e’. Well there are lots of character differences but that’s not where I was going with it. Anyway, the guy who came to visit was the Lieutenant Governor of California and former Mayor of San Francisco, Gavin Newsom (here’s an image comparison just to make this all worthwhile: Newsom vs. Bateman). Nice guy though.
We’re halfway done on this mural and I’m heading back tomorrow for round two. Ding ding.
THEDARCLAUD■ 
