Murals
Over the past 20 years I've worked on a bunch of murals including some at Orr Hot Springs (not shown here). Below are an assortment of some of them. Unfortunately, murals like websites, can be ephemeral, disappearing into the ether of time and space. I'm including some background information underneath the images for those of you who are interested.
Background information on these murals
Children's Book Press
The top lot of images are from the floor, wall murals, and wooden cutouts we created for Children's Book Press. Unfortunately the last Executive Director of the press appeared not to care too much about her job and with what appeared to be very limited success for her fund raising efforts and managerial skills the press went under. Lee and Low purchased the assets including our books, and although they are a wonderful organization, it's not the same. I have no idea what happened to the murals but I have the wooden cutouts if anyone is interested in purchasing them - please contact me at miraguy@gmail.com
Here's the original info about these murals
During the dot-com boom, Children's Book Press had to move to a new office. It was difficult to find office space in the San Francisco rental market. The space they found was a bit odd and depressing being long and narrow. However, it had beautiful light. Harriet Rohmer (the publisher of Children's Book Press) asked me to enliven the space. We started by choosing 10 colors to paint the space. What could be more fun than walking to work on water? It gives you the sense you can do anything. So we painted a water walk. We also took characters out of some of the children's books and made wooden-cut outs which we painted and hung on the walls. We designed and had built a storage loft and painted the water pipes to be more festive extending their shape to create a mythological water-pipe beast. I had lots of excellent workers and volunteers and worked collaboratively with Harriet (the original ED and founder of CBP) and the staff of Children's Book Press who also helped paint. It was a lot of fun and hard work, but it is now an exciting and magical place to be. (That's my dear friend Mitch Myers working on the water walk). Detail of 43' water walk. There were a mass of pipes that became a postmodern Pre-Columbian water-pipe dragon mixing all sorts of metaphors with images from the picturebooks. The wooden figures were cut out by Georgia Ryan and Cushman Amesbury. The goat and iguanna came from Karen Lindquist's beautiful book "Grannie Jus Come." The running boy is from one of my books - "Where Fireflies Dance." That's Bob Langdon, who has since moved back to New York, goofing off with the cut-outs. The backgrounds show some of the many wall colors. Antonio Vigil built the loft, and painted nearly all of the beautiful rocks. Anna Bonner was my assistant, coordinator and fellow painter. Susan Lindeman and Gary Page handled the many Children's Book Press logistics (Susan also painted). Other painters included: Darla and Ben Radcliffe, Laura McCamy, Ellen Singletary, Jeff Raymond, Roseanne Fox, Mike Nichols, and several others. Mural paints by Nova Colors came from Precita Eyes Mural Association.
Monkey Mural at Harriet Rohmer's House
There had been a depressing electrical fire in this wall of Harriet's house causing damage and dismay. We decided to do something lively and fun to bring new energy into the hallway. Several friends helped including Heidi Denton, and Chance Lane. You can find Harriet at www.harrietrohmer.com where she continues to do great good in the world.
Mariuccia Iaconi Book Imports
After visiting Children's Book Press's new office space Mariuccia felt inspired to spruce up her office space. Mariuccia's office/warehouse/bookstore was in a wonderful building and had a very functional, clean design. What it lacked was color, warmth and fun. These things bring tremendous energy and good feeling to a work environment.
My friend Mitch came with me to our first meeeting and Mariuccia and her daughter Daria and Mitch and I brainstormed together. We looked at lots of books and chose images to work and play with from the other books. We chose different colors for the walls and asked Antonio Vigil to make wooden cut outs from one of the books and wooden panels to make murals out of some of the other book images. It was a magical process watching it all come together. The 2 main books we used were "como todo lo que nace" by Elizabeth Brami, illustrated by Tom Schamp and "Riurdos de los Animales" by (somehow their name got lost). This is Mariuccia Iaconi, the photo does not do her justice. She is very elegant and creative in her appearance and gentle and intelligent in her manner. I loved having the opportunity to work with her and her daughters. The image we painted on the bathroom door is based on a picture from the exquisite children's book "como todo lo que nace" by Elizabeth Brami, illustrated by Tom Schamp (one of my all time favorite children's book artists). The whale picture is also from that book. Iaconi books were the first importer and distributor of multicultural children's books starting as a family business in 1955.
When I met Mariuccia, she was running the business with her two daughters. I was impressed by her integrity both in how she did business and who she is as a human being. Unfortunately, due to the "Pacman" tendencies of large multi-million dollar book corporations, and the anti-immigrant sentiment in the passage of Proposition 181's banning of bilingual education Mariuccia Iaconi Books was forced to close their business after 52 years of bringing extraordinary books to the United States.
St. Mary's Center
This was a one day mural collaboration between the seniors of St. Mary's Center in Oakland, a deaf teenagers program and Americorps. The seniors and the teens did self-portraits and the teens transcribed them onto the wall for the seniors who were too frail to paint. We all worked very hard and had a wonderful time.
St Mary's Center works with frail, home-bound and homeless seniors, families in need of food and inner-city pre-schoolers. It is a wonderful organization and needs support. They have some very beautiful gift sets of note cards with envelopes using homeless seniors' art and stories from their lives. They really are wonderful, moving, tender and funny. If you are interested in purchasing any of these (and supporting St. Mary's) please contact them: http://www.stmaryscenter.org/ St. Mary's Center 636 22nd st., Oakland, CA 94612 510.893.4723
El Grenada Elementary School
I first visited El Grenada Elementary School in 1991 to do an author/illustrator presentation.I commented that the school looked a little bleak with it's institutional grey paint when it was in such a stunning location by the ocean. They wrote a grant and had me come and do some murals with their 3rd and 4th graders. It was a wonderful lesson in working collaboratively. Each of the children involved painted a symbol to represent themselves on one of the hands in the border, while also contributing to the larger picture which we developed together. The text on the wall is reportedly from Chief Seattle's speech about the interconnectedness of all life. We painted 3 sides of a building, each side representing a different natural environment: the ocean, the desert, and the redwoods.
Since then El Grenada has painted many murals, planted gardens and become a very beautiful school. Much credit goes to Melissa Moriarty who taught at El Grenade for many years and organized many of the murals. She now teaches at Hatch Elementary School in Half Moon Bay.
The top lot of images are from the floor, wall murals, and wooden cutouts we created for Children's Book Press. Unfortunately the last Executive Director of the press appeared not to care too much about her job and with what appeared to be very limited success for her fund raising efforts and managerial skills the press went under. Lee and Low purchased the assets including our books, and although they are a wonderful organization, it's not the same. I have no idea what happened to the murals but I have the wooden cutouts if anyone is interested in purchasing them - please contact me at miraguy@gmail.com
Here's the original info about these murals
During the dot-com boom, Children's Book Press had to move to a new office. It was difficult to find office space in the San Francisco rental market. The space they found was a bit odd and depressing being long and narrow. However, it had beautiful light. Harriet Rohmer (the publisher of Children's Book Press) asked me to enliven the space. We started by choosing 10 colors to paint the space. What could be more fun than walking to work on water? It gives you the sense you can do anything. So we painted a water walk. We also took characters out of some of the children's books and made wooden-cut outs which we painted and hung on the walls. We designed and had built a storage loft and painted the water pipes to be more festive extending their shape to create a mythological water-pipe beast. I had lots of excellent workers and volunteers and worked collaboratively with Harriet (the original ED and founder of CBP) and the staff of Children's Book Press who also helped paint. It was a lot of fun and hard work, but it is now an exciting and magical place to be. (That's my dear friend Mitch Myers working on the water walk). Detail of 43' water walk. There were a mass of pipes that became a postmodern Pre-Columbian water-pipe dragon mixing all sorts of metaphors with images from the picturebooks. The wooden figures were cut out by Georgia Ryan and Cushman Amesbury. The goat and iguanna came from Karen Lindquist's beautiful book "Grannie Jus Come." The running boy is from one of my books - "Where Fireflies Dance." That's Bob Langdon, who has since moved back to New York, goofing off with the cut-outs. The backgrounds show some of the many wall colors. Antonio Vigil built the loft, and painted nearly all of the beautiful rocks. Anna Bonner was my assistant, coordinator and fellow painter. Susan Lindeman and Gary Page handled the many Children's Book Press logistics (Susan also painted). Other painters included: Darla and Ben Radcliffe, Laura McCamy, Ellen Singletary, Jeff Raymond, Roseanne Fox, Mike Nichols, and several others. Mural paints by Nova Colors came from Precita Eyes Mural Association.
Monkey Mural at Harriet Rohmer's House
There had been a depressing electrical fire in this wall of Harriet's house causing damage and dismay. We decided to do something lively and fun to bring new energy into the hallway. Several friends helped including Heidi Denton, and Chance Lane. You can find Harriet at www.harrietrohmer.com where she continues to do great good in the world.
Mariuccia Iaconi Book Imports
After visiting Children's Book Press's new office space Mariuccia felt inspired to spruce up her office space. Mariuccia's office/warehouse/bookstore was in a wonderful building and had a very functional, clean design. What it lacked was color, warmth and fun. These things bring tremendous energy and good feeling to a work environment.
My friend Mitch came with me to our first meeeting and Mariuccia and her daughter Daria and Mitch and I brainstormed together. We looked at lots of books and chose images to work and play with from the other books. We chose different colors for the walls and asked Antonio Vigil to make wooden cut outs from one of the books and wooden panels to make murals out of some of the other book images. It was a magical process watching it all come together. The 2 main books we used were "como todo lo que nace" by Elizabeth Brami, illustrated by Tom Schamp and "Riurdos de los Animales" by (somehow their name got lost). This is Mariuccia Iaconi, the photo does not do her justice. She is very elegant and creative in her appearance and gentle and intelligent in her manner. I loved having the opportunity to work with her and her daughters. The image we painted on the bathroom door is based on a picture from the exquisite children's book "como todo lo que nace" by Elizabeth Brami, illustrated by Tom Schamp (one of my all time favorite children's book artists). The whale picture is also from that book. Iaconi books were the first importer and distributor of multicultural children's books starting as a family business in 1955.
When I met Mariuccia, she was running the business with her two daughters. I was impressed by her integrity both in how she did business and who she is as a human being. Unfortunately, due to the "Pacman" tendencies of large multi-million dollar book corporations, and the anti-immigrant sentiment in the passage of Proposition 181's banning of bilingual education Mariuccia Iaconi Books was forced to close their business after 52 years of bringing extraordinary books to the United States.
St. Mary's Center
This was a one day mural collaboration between the seniors of St. Mary's Center in Oakland, a deaf teenagers program and Americorps. The seniors and the teens did self-portraits and the teens transcribed them onto the wall for the seniors who were too frail to paint. We all worked very hard and had a wonderful time.
St Mary's Center works with frail, home-bound and homeless seniors, families in need of food and inner-city pre-schoolers. It is a wonderful organization and needs support. They have some very beautiful gift sets of note cards with envelopes using homeless seniors' art and stories from their lives. They really are wonderful, moving, tender and funny. If you are interested in purchasing any of these (and supporting St. Mary's) please contact them: http://www.stmaryscenter.org/ St. Mary's Center 636 22nd st., Oakland, CA 94612 510.893.4723
El Grenada Elementary School
I first visited El Grenada Elementary School in 1991 to do an author/illustrator presentation.I commented that the school looked a little bleak with it's institutional grey paint when it was in such a stunning location by the ocean. They wrote a grant and had me come and do some murals with their 3rd and 4th graders. It was a wonderful lesson in working collaboratively. Each of the children involved painted a symbol to represent themselves on one of the hands in the border, while also contributing to the larger picture which we developed together. The text on the wall is reportedly from Chief Seattle's speech about the interconnectedness of all life. We painted 3 sides of a building, each side representing a different natural environment: the ocean, the desert, and the redwoods.
Since then El Grenada has painted many murals, planted gardens and become a very beautiful school. Much credit goes to Melissa Moriarty who taught at El Grenade for many years and organized many of the murals. She now teaches at Hatch Elementary School in Half Moon Bay.