My Artist Statement (for murals)

So recently, I applied to be on a muralist roster. Kind of just a list of people who do murals that the city of Portland keeps on hand, and on their website, to refer to whenever anyone goes looking for a muralist. Kind of a biggie for me to try and be on. So I thought I would share the little artist statement I wrote for that application - it's basically my whole mural-ing deal in a nutshell, since I had to keep it super short. :) Wish me luck!
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My mission is to bring: POSITIVITY, BEAUTY, INSPIRATION, LEARNING and UNDERSTANDING to environments, through painting walls.

I started painting murals as a high school student in Eugene, Oregon. My Mom hated the wallpaper in our kitchen, so we scraped it off, and I painted a tropical garden. During that first mural, I fell in love with painting BIG. Since then, I have been painting murals in private homes, businesses, with students, in memory care facilities, and with prison inmates.

After college, I joined the Peace Corps, where I lived and worked in Madagascar for 2 years. In Madagascar, I painted murals about health and environment topics in rural hospitals and schools. The murals became visual teaching aids, where most are illiterate. It became clear to me that murals can add value to the world, outside of aesthetics. Murals can teach concepts, illustrate ideas, tell stories and change minds. 

After returning from the Peace Corps, I joined the Lane Arts Council's Teaching Artist Roster in Eugene, OR. I taught mural-making to students in grades K-12, in over 10 public schools. I once facilitated a 4th grade in painting a mural on cloth, about Malaria prevention, and shipped it to Madagascar where it was installed in a rural clinic.  I have witnessed the rise in student’s self-esteem and sense of community when they work together on a mural. The same way that a school community is strengthened by a collaborative mural project, public murals allow artists and community members to honor their own neighborhoods. I enjoy both facilitating mural projects with groups, and creating them solo. 

Murals can turn forgotten spaces into beautiful ones. Whether that transformation occurs inside a private home or in a public space, murals allow people to tell their stories. What I love about being a muralist, is that I get to help be that storyteller. Murals allow walls to live up to their full potential. They allow people to speak without using words, and to be understood.

MURAL TIME LAPSE VIDEO!!

First of all, I know I said weekly posts, but... life happens. And lately, life has been great - full of travel and family and friends time! Spent a weekend in Seattle with my bestie, then my sister was in town and we got to spend a week together with her and our parents. It's been really nice to get to see my fav out-of-towners. But now, back to the normal routine. That is, for the next week or so... Have I mentioned that I'm going to be a work-a-holic this Summer?? If you want to hang out with me, check back in August, when I resume having a life. Haha! I'll be going full time at my "day job" as a graphic designer, then working nights and weekends painting murals in another memory care facility here in Portland. The memory care facility has a deadline - a grand opening party and residents moving in ONE MONTH from when I'll be starting painting. Pretty crazy. But sometimes having deadlines really motivates me. I'm kind of looking forward to heading over to an empty building after work and just rocking out to my music, de-stressing with my acrylics. It will be nice, I think :) And I will of course be keeping you updated with more pictures than your browser can handle. ;)

Anyway, what I'm REALLY here to show you this week, is this:




My mural time lapse video is finally finished!!! This was a mural that I gifted my boss, who's about to welcome a little one :) But shhhh don't tell anyone I'm giving them away ;) We set up a video camera for the 8-ish hours that I painted, and I brought it down to 3.5 minutes. I tell you what, I don't know why I haven't done this yet. I love watching these videos, and now I have my own! Very exciting. Looking forward to maybe doing more of these using the webcam in my mac (I've heard you can do this?!). Anyway, enjoy and see you soon!

Corie

Thoughts and Ramblings on Mural-ing

I'm going to try to stick to blogging every week. I started this when I was working as an Artist in Residence in the public schools, and this blog was a way for me to share lesson plans with others. I used to lay out detailed instructions for lessons about famous artists, and the process of making murals with children. It was great to be able to just hand teachers a link to this site, so they could remember the lessons I was doing with their students, and use them for long after I'm out of their classrooms. Now I'm not teaching anymore. So what is this space for? I think it's been a nice way to share my current projects, and also a way to force myself to reflect. So, this week I am without a project, but here are some thoughts I jotted down while I was painting murals up in Walla Walla:

Thoughts on painting murals:

• Best tool ever: 1" flat brush.

• Best part of painting: Putting in the highlights and the lightest lights at the very end.... I can hardly wait for this part, every time!! Painting edges where sky or background meets the object/foreground.

• Worst part of painting: Putting down the very first base layers: BO-RING. Also, looks like crap at first, which is slightly scary. Especially if I have to leave the mural in this state at someone's house before I come back the next time. I always feel the need to give a disclaimer: "Don't worry, I promise it will get better later! DONT LOOK AT IT NOW!"

• How to paint fast: Stop thinking. Stop judging every move you're making. Listen to podcasts on really interesting stuff, or songs with a lot of lyrics (Atmosphere is my fav for this). The words distract me from forming any inside my own head, which can lead to totally counter-productive self-talk/self-doubt, which slows me down. The key is to make creative decisions quickly, so that you are using instinct and feelings, rather than over-analytical thought. Now, this is not to say that some thought doesn't go into making murals - I do think about what I'm doing in the beginning during the planning/sketching stage, and also in moments where I stop and stand back from a wall to look at what needs to happen next. 

• Livin' your Dream: You have to DECIDE to do it, and then you have to WORK at it. Someone told me one time that you can do ANYTHING you want, but you can't do EVERYTHING you want. First, you have to DECIDE. It was really good advice for me at the time. A couple years ago, I was kind of floundering. I'd just gotten back from the Peace Corps, and was working in a grocery store bakery, trying to figure out what the hell to do with myself. It was everything I could do not to re-apply for the Peace Corps, or a volunteer position in Jamaica. I was interested in, and actively considering trying to build careers in all of the following: illustrator, tattoo artist, muralist, concept artist for animation or any kind of art for the entertainment industry, and art teacher. I was also poking around a lot on usajobs.gov, looking for government jobs in everything from Peace Corps Recruiter, to pretty much anything with the EPA, or Fish and Wildlife, etc. (After Peace Corps, they give you one year of non-competitive eligibility for government jobs - it just makes it easier for you to get hired in one). I even went to a government career fair, and the Secret Service had a table. I took a pamphlet. I was pretty lost, OK? Anyway, point of all of this, is that I was going in a thousand different directions, and thought that the moment I picked one, I was closing all the other doors, forever. I eventually made a pro/con list of all my very top career choices. And I rated them. In the end, murals kind of won over everything else. I knew I liked being around people and working for clients I could actually meet in person, and personally help in a teeny tiny way. I liked being able to brighten people's spaces, and help tell their stories on their walls. Cheesy, I know. But I liked the human aspect of making murals for people. I also really, really like to paint BIG. I like the variety of work I get to do too. I remember being in the Peace Corps, and making lists of all the things I really missed about being in America. I missed burritos with green sauce. I missed my family. I missed the feeling of being in someone's house and making them a mural. The fact that I missed that SO much, and would paint murals for people while I was in Madagascar, with the crappiest of wall situations, really told me that mural-making was just that important to me. I really believe that just making that CONSCIOUS DECISION that murals were my most favorite artistic career choice, has set in motion everything that's led up to getting me some success at doing it now. I think that part was really important. It's crazy to be able to look back at all that, and see all the pieces leading up to where I'm at now, feeling like I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing. I feel really grateful for every little piece of it though, even the hard parts. 

Ok, ending this week's rambling.....now! Have a great week everyone!! :)

Forest Nursery Mural Progress - First days!

Hi All, 

As promised, a picture post!! Here's how the nursery mural is coming along. (I actually already finished this wall, but haven't taken good final shots yet.... stay tuned for those soon.) I really loved painting this one. My clients asked for a look that was somewhere in between the typical child-like kids room murals, and something more realistic. They want their son to be able to grow with the mural, and like it well into his childhood and on. It's very freeing and exciting for me when someone gives me this kind of direction. I made it a forest, with their colors, with all the elements they wanted, BUT, I get to play with shape make it more "whimsical". It's a ton of fun. Below are pictures of the first 3 days. I finished it on the 4th day, but don't have final pics yet. 

So, this morning I went over to - I thought - spray the clear sealer over it, pull off the blue tape and be done! Then, my clients were like, "Well, we like it so much, we were thinking maybe you could paint the rest of the room?!" Um, YES! So, this is going to be a bigger project than I initially thought, and I could not be more stoked about that. I think it will be absolutely magical for their kid to be in a room that has a forest on not one, but all four walls!! Not only that, but they asked if I could put a castle in there, too :) So excited!!! More to come soon!

Thanks for reading, 

Corie

Day 1:

 Day 2:

 Day 3:

 My stuff...

My First Portland Mural!

Hi All, 

Well, I'm excited to say that I met with my first mural clients in Portland!! I'm sooo excited for this job. It marks a new chapter in my life :)

Should be a fun one. This is the inspiration photo. The mural will be for a lovely couple expecting a baby boy pretty soon, in their nursery :) They want a forest that's sort of in this style - not realistic, but also not overly childlike. Something their kid will (hopefully) not grow out of. Can't wait! Stay tuned for updates on this one. Yay!

Overall, I feel like I'm adjusting to Portland and my life here pretty well. I'm excited to be here!!! 

My Last School Mural.... (For Awhile)

Hello Readers! I am now writing you from Portland, Oregon! It's my 3rd day living in the city and so far, I am happy and excited about what's going on up here. I moved only 2 hours away (I was living in Eugene), so everything still feels like home...ish. It's still rainy Oregon, and I have been taking trips up to Portland since I was little, so there's a lot that's very familiar. I also have many friends in town, so once I start seeing everyone, I think this will start to feel even more like home. It's by far, the easiest move I've ever made. But it's also different in another way: it's permanent for the foreseeable future. I've moved to Laguna Beach and Oakland, CA., Philadelphia, PA., and 2 different rural villages in Madagascar. All of which, I moved to without knowing anyone, or much about the place at all. Those moves were some big adjustments, but they always had an end-date... they were temporary. 

Anyway, here I am in the city now, starting this new part of my life. I'm working half-time as a Graphic Designer for Portland Jewish Academy. So far, it's been great. I like the Marketing team that I'm working with - everyone else has been really nice, too. I'm getting to design fliers and things already, it's fun! In the rest of the time, I'm going to be working on getting my mural business going. I'm looking forward to that part a lot. But I did leave a pretty cool job back home. I will really miss being an Artist in Residence in the schools. I do hope to get on a Teaching Artist's roster here though, so that I can continue teaching kids. It's so much fun. Here was my last project with an after school program in Springfield. The school is called Two Rivers Dos Rios, and their mascot is the otter. Hence, the two rivers and otter imagery. Only snapped a couple of pics of this in progress, but I'll be posting more once I get shots of the final installed piece. The kids did great on this! It was a nice wrap-up to my time teaching in Eugene.