Urban Solace Mural Project

The act of making a piece of art has many stages. Typically when I am doing a painting, there are many different steps taking place simultaneously.  Some of these steps relate to the content of the painting, i.e., what the painting will look like and the other steps deal with the making of the painting and how I, as the artist, will get it to look like I envision…so you constantly have an interplay between content and process.

For me, traditionally, as an artist I am doing this on canvas…studio or live, either way it is still on a manageable canvas that is right in front of me.  This means I can literally experience the entire canvas at once as I engage in making the artwork.

Urban Solace Mural Project-Early Stages-Jesinoski Arts

Mural painting, for me, is different from creating a traditional piece of art in two distinct ways:

1.  A mural is typically in a public forum and thus, I am forced to contemplate, in a more cognitive manner, and answer the questions of what I want to say about the art and where I want the creative process to go…this is the content side. Typically I do pieces that can be completed in the course of four to five hours as opposed to several weeks or months.  With the mural I am extending this process and therefore I am forced to slow down, be more deliberate, and more thoughtful.  In some ways, I am learning an entire new platform for creating art.
2. At every stage of the mural painting as the days pass into weeks and then into months, there is a shift between the emotional relationship of the artist and the artwork.  As a process that would usually take place in the span of two to three hours now has stretched out to two to three months, so now there's an entirely different means of coping with the artist’s emotions, feelings, habits, etc. that are inherent within every work of art.  

I could have followed more traditional or more efficient means of creating the mural such as drawing the idea up in the studio, breaking it down in layers, and painting the mural on the wall in a week, but to me, the depth and quality of the art comes out through that process of creation.  

The manner in which I have chosen to approach the mural painting allows me to constantly interact with the people around me working and dining in the restaurant’s outdoor patio.  This interaction colors and shapes my own thoughts and feelings which become a part of the mural painting.

Urban Solace Mural Project-Day 21-Jesinoski Arts