It's a bird! It's a... bird!

September 29, 2014

RVA MakerFest was a smashing success! I had a lot of fun (while I wasn't busy being really nervous), and I'm already excited for next year. If you made it to the event, you might be interested in seeing this play-by-play of the process for setting up my show demo.

I had to figure out how to paint a mural without painting a mural. To me, the most important part of a mural is architectural context, so I set out to fake some architecture.

Using the web tool Rasterbator (I know) to blow up a house picture I took from Cary Street, I created a 4x8' "window" to a mural. Rasterbator enlarges and then chops up the image into a stack of printable-size pages. Here you can see how a couple came off on the ride to the museum... The wall itself however is intentionally cut out to expose the primer I put onto the plywood in preparation for painting.

Thus I had a wall for my mural demo! Next I sketched a design, colored it in photoshop, and overlaid it onto my photo.

Then during the Fest I painted and talked and ran around and painted and ate and painted and talked... and ended up with something kinda like the design!

This is after I disassembled the rest of the booth.

In terms of the pure image, I have a lotta things I would change (more outlines, different colors). In terms of the demo, I think it was a great success! I even got help painting from a tiny child or two (and a couple of enthusiastic adults).

Speaking of help, I couldn'ta done this without my brother Evan who helped me set up on Friday and acted as booth-backup and gofer on Saturday, and helped me pack up along with his lovely lady Katie. Also Ross of Sure Hand Signs for his hauling help on Friday! Big things take many hands <3

Now! If you did miss MakerFest, you have a second chance to see me and my booth and my demo! I'm doing the whole thing again this Saturday at Arts on the Grove, which is in the Near West End and starts at 9am.

Details here --> http://www.richmond.com/calendar/festival/event_786029ba-24b7-11e3-a6df-1bd7f581d5dd.html

HerrSuite - X - Arts in the Alley

September 17, 2014

This post is about a nonprofit I've been working with for almost two years now. Arts in the Alley has given me great opportunity to explore the media and methods of mural-painting, learn how to work with large groups of helpers, and give back to the Richmond community at the same time.

I got involved with Arts in the Alley in my senior year at VCU, through a class called CreateAthon. I will describe CreateAthon very briefly: 24 hours, creative advertising students + nonprofits, go go go go! (Plus a whole semester planning for that momentous marathon of creation). At the beginning of that semester, I had recently decided that mural-painting was going to be my full-time gig come hell or high water upon graduation, which made Arts in the Alley a perfect fit for me.

AitA's driving soul and spirit Jeanine Guidry and I talked and talked and talked, and by the end of CreateAthon, Arts in the Alley had a bundle of goodies including a new logo, a new website, business cards / envelopes / letterhead, and a social media and marketing action plan... AND a new member. (If you are a deserving non-profit with creative ad needs, I highly recommend applying to CreateAthon)

Beyond the simple connection of mural painting, I felt particularly drawn to Arts in the Alley for their mission to bring communities together to enact change in their environment. Murals are becoming more and more popular in Richmond, most notably as a result of a handful of local painters, the Richmond Street Art Festival, and the Richmond Mural Project. Although there is some amazing art springing up on the walls of Richmond as a result, I think in many cases more consideration needs to be taken of a mural's location or its neighbors who have to see the mural every day like-it-or-not. In contrast, AitA's goal is to bring together the actual people who live in the neighborhood in which the murals are being painted.

I have a LOT of opinions about the whole relationship between muralists and the communities they enter, which will have to wait for another day. Suffice to say: this whole page on AitA's site convinced me that this project is something I HAVE to be involved in.

So, post-CreateAthon I've been involved in four AitA events. I'll give a little blurb about each of them below, with links to the facebook albums for each one.

Bellevue Elementary School

The second grade painters and their volunteer co-painters.

I was thrown right into co-leading my first AitA event with another newbie, Karol. Thankfully Karol has tons of experience working with kids and leading classes, unlike me who is totally befuddled by children. (I mean look at them, are you not intimidated??) So, the first event turned out great because Karol is incredible. (No facebook album for this one, oops)

Jackson Ward / Mama J's

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10152294892442786.1073741830.12914017785&type=3

After I had my feet wet at Bellevue, I jumped all the way in with the parking garage at Mama J's - my first real, full-weekend outdoor crazy marathon of painting! This mural was a total of five walls (ceiling, three inside, one exterior front), and just one of four total giant murals that went up that weekend. This was my own design, and I had upwards of 20 volunteers going at once more often than not! It was loads of fun and craziness, and totally hooked me. Apparently ordering people around is kind of intoxicating ;) Before we cleaned and primed, this garage was honestly a pretty scary place that employees and customers didn't really feel safe parking in. While the city reclaims anything you leave alone eventually, hopefully this will make a difference for those who park here.

Culture Xpo

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10152019268952786.1073741828.12914017785&type=3

The Culture Expo is a big event that AitA takes part in every year now. I got to help out last year by doing a live painting in front of everyone walking by the booth. Live painting is crazy and neat and totally not what I'm cut out for even though it's so similar to mural painting in public (whoda thunk). But! It was really neat to see how excited everyone coming by the booth was about AitA's mission.

Hospital Hospitality House

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10152928310702786.1073741833.12914017785&type=3

Hospital Hospitality House had bushels of walls for us to paint, and I actually lost track of how many we covered (7 murals? several of them filling whole rooms and one up several flights of a stairwell) This was an adventure in wacky wall conditions for me, as well as fun problem-solving of how to incorporate existing architecture into the mural (answer: trees. always trees). At this point I had learned that large, simple shapes with clean edges are the best way to get volunteers used to painting, and I based my design around that.

My favorite part of all of these events was getting to see people come to the event really nervous about their own painting ability and struggling to paint clean edges - then by the time their shift was up, they were total pros at solid colors and clean lines, and they knew it!

Arts in the Alley is a really fun way to help do a lot of do-gooder stuff: give a face-lift to Richmond communities with abandoned or neglected buildings, engage and connect the people in those communities, and give everyone involved some shake-it-out creative color time. You can go see ALL of these murals (I assume there's some way to break into Bellevue - have a child?) if you'd like, but the best part is marveling at the before-and-afters, some of which you can see in our alley portfolio.

They also just so happen to be participating in the Amazing Raise, which is taking place TODAY 9/17! AitA is run totally by volunteers, and all donations go directly to funding supplies for the next project (which could be in YOUR neighborhood!) Please consider donating - now is the best time because it helps us win bonus prizes ... check out https://www.facebook.com/events/722171174505291/ to learn more.

Happy Birthday HerrSuite!

September 15, 2014

HerrSuite is 1 year old!

I missed the actual anniversary of getting my business license (August 9th), so I landed on the next best thing, which is my own birthday hurr hurr. I can't freakin believe it's been a whole year! If you'd like to celebrate with me, you have ample opportunity to do so because HerrSuite's going to be taking part in a whole bundle of upcoming events. I'll make a separate post about those soon, so keep an eye out.

Thank you thank you thank you. Family: thank you thank you thank you!!!! Friends: thank youuuuu <3 Also many of you friends and acquaintances that I've run into recently have made of point of saying that they read this blog (or "creep all over your stuff online" - just as good), which is really really awesome to hear.

ONE YEAR OF HERRSUITE

Counting only the ones painted post-business license, I've painted 14 murals as HerrSuite, and I think I had a different process for every single one.
After a whole year, I feel way less like a naive 1-toothed baby when people ask me what I do and I say 'muralist'. (I have so many teeth now!) (Teeth are confidence, is the metaphor I did there.)
I've gone through all 1,000 business cards that I ordered at the start of this. (I bet I can halve the time that took this year ;)
If you were around me when I was trying to figure out the perfect name for my little baby business 1 year ago, you know what heartache has gone into the decision to keep such a wonky name, and I'm proud to announce I'm not sick of it at all :) I also think I've finally gotten comfortable referring to my business and job by actually saying "HerrSuite." I can't wait until I'm so famous that everyone knows how to pronounce it already. (Maybe next year I'll make a tshirt with all the pun iterations of HerrSuite combined into one?)
Squarespace (my website host) doesn't show how many hits the site has gotten to date, but as I'm looking at all these numbers I think that www.herrsuite.com has gotten 6,815 page views since last September (!?) which sounds like a helluva lot to me. Woo!
I have fallen off of a ladder or scaffolding ZERO times.

Here's a collage of all of the murals I've worked on in the past year:

Finally, sometime soon here I will be producing a 2015 wall calendar in honor of a whole year of professional mural painting! If you follow my online variety show of social media, you may remember the prototype that lives on my own wall: http://www.herrsuite.com/blog/calendar

I am in the process of painting the new calendar right now, and I'm still deciding a bunch of stuff: will it hang so you can scroll it up as the days go by, or be a big temporary wallpaper sticker so that it's maximum-murally (and easy to have made)? Will it still be greeny-blue with red and purple lettering? Most importantly, which holidays will I include???

For anyone that hates the end-of-the-month jump on a regular calendar, this is for you! A luxurious hilltop view of the whole year all at once.

If you use digital calendars, but reeeeally like the satisfaction of crossing days off in a big red marker, I'll be including a big red marker with the calendar!

There will be plenty of space for writing your many daily activities on each day!

And for all of you that live in rented or temporary spaces and wish you could have a HerrSuite mural, this is pretty close!

These calendars will be ready to order sometime in the next few weeks, and I think I'll be able to take orders on this site as well as sell them at some of the events I mentioned above. If you think you might perchance happen to need a gift for someone in the next three months for some reason, get excited! If you're the type that is really into pens and Ticonderogas and planning and calendars, get really excited!