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information about wall murals
Before and after: The photo above right shows the original house without the mural and before it was re-painted to coordinate with the art. The mural completely transforms the space giving the architecture adding visual interest and a feeling of elegant sophistication.
One of this year's most interesting projects is the four panel mural commissioned by Dr. Mary Starkebaum. This wall mural spans a 22 feet long exterior wall leading up to the entrance of her house. The wall faces north and has an eave four feet wide that protects the mural from sun and weather. The house is a fifty-year-old Northwest modern-style house that she explained was influenced by the "Japanese aesthetic of simplicity and continuity between indoors and outdoors." Complimenting the architecture is her small Japanese style garden between the front door and the street.
Dr. Starkebaum grew up with oriental art. Her grandfather had been a surgeon in Shanghai and her father was born there. While in college she learned about the 8th century Chinese poet Li-Tai-Po and later, in 1990, one of her patients introduced her to Mahler's song cycle Lied von der Erde (Song of the Earth) based on Li-Tai-Po's poems. Her patient was a singer whose ambition was to sing the cycle. Working from the German, Starkebaum made a translation of the poem, maintaining the cadence so it could be sung in English.
The poems used by Mahler for the cycle describe various landscape settings. Starkebaum looked through books to find oriental landscapes that approximated the scenes, made copies, and began to cut and paste. All she needed was an artist to bring her vision together. It was when she saw my work in the January 9th Seattle Times article that she contacted me.
I have great respect for Asian art and she felt that my other murals demonstrated my versatility with a variety of different styles. I encouraged her participation in determining both the content and style of the murals, but she relied on me to use my own artistic sense to convert her approximation into a coherent piece of art. It was a wonderful collaboration.
"The installed murals now look as if they have always been there. They wonderfully represent the spirit of Mahler's music, as well as Li-Tai-Po's poems, and provide a welcoming and meditative passage to the house, and connection with the garden."
--Dr. Mary Starkebaum
The Lied von der Erde mural in progress in my studio.
To help unite the various elements of the mural and make sure that the work would make visual sense both from a distance as well as from close up, I suggested putting in the egret and the blossoming cherry tree in the center of the mural. I designed the composition of the four panels so that each could stand alone while also flowing into each other as a single united piece. The palette is intended to suggest ink on old silk, with subtle touches of red.
Above: I designed and handcrafted four frames from Cherry wood to hold the mural in place.
Each of the details in the mural represent aspects of Li-Tai-Po's poems
Preparation is important. I drew this basic ink sketch in preparation for the mural. In addition to this rough ink sketch a detailed pencil drawing was made for each of the four panels and a further set of actual size line-art sketched for the main features like the pavilion, horsemen, girls by the pond, etc.
