Working from Street: “Dile B for Birder”

So, for two weeks, I’ll be outside. 😺

Long story shorter, a couple months ago my husband @muellerlowlife applied to do a mural for the city of West Allis as part of a project led by Wallpapered City, LLC, a local consultancy firm which sources artists for large-scale murals.

Sooooooo… my other half (“David”) diligently worked to come up with a design and, when he felt confident in it, applied to place his design on a small wall.

It was anything but a sure thing. It also was clear lots of artists applied.

And time passed.

And soon we thought his design wasn’t chosen as the deadline was extended (usually that means the committee didn’t get a submission they wanted so they ask for more)

…and then the second deadline passed and…

household morale was low.

But then, after the second deadline passed, they (Wallpapered City) called and blew our minds.

Because they and the city of West Allis apparently loved my husband’s submission. In fact, they extended the deadline to find additional work but his submission was in from the start.

Since we thought he wasn’t in at all… that news was pretty unexpected and wonderful.

However, the business owner whose wall he applied for didn’t like his submission.

Allegedly, he was the only one who didn’t. The city and the LLC fought but… you can’t make a man like a mural he doesn’t want to like.

So Wallpapered City and West Allis instead awarded my husband the feature wall, right on the main drag, which is twice the size of the wall he applied for.

That’s the story.

From highs to lows and back again, an artist’s tale.

So he has two weeks to do this 80’ x 18’ mural and I’m the other half of his team. We are a married art collective called Sign of the Times.

In any case, the mural is so big we were given a boom lift which at first terrified me but now it’s just another thing that beeps too loudly and generally makes too much noise all the time.

Also, this week is really rainy so we’ve only been able to work one and a half days.

Yet, I can’t help but think/fret about the American West on fire and wish the rain would go where it’s most needed.

It feels selfish to complain about rain when people’s homes are being devoured by flame, choked by smoke and ash and so many are looking at a sky which has turned orange.

💔

So here in rainy Wisconsin, we are taking what we can get.

Monday night we started. We were able to project the image on the wall so David could trace it.

The trees photo-bombed a lot.

And the next day was crazy rainy. We went out there and stared at the wall and got soaked to the bone and made no progress.

However, Wednesday the rain was lighter so we decided to start priming the wall, using the traced lines as reference points.

And we got a hell of a lot done!

I was in charge of priming everything accessible to me from the ground. I’m tall so I could access quite a bit.

The difficult thing about priming this wall is how it’s super crumbly with deep pits so to comprehensively cover it with the white primer takes a great deal of physical energy.

It is an example of one of the only times you can really go batshit on an object and it would be the correct course of action.

So I had to psyche myself up.

Because, after I primed my “first area”, I stood back and realized that my arms were burning.

EXHILARATING! 😻

I have been training for this! As an epileptic who feels as if her body is breaking down, over the course of the last year, I’ve been building up what muscles I could 💪 for more mental health reasons and… well, this was good.

Because otherwise I would have been toast.

Toast is nice but it wouldn’t have helped the situation.

And then we really got into the zone.

Thank you, coffee.

As the person priming from the ground on a rainy day, I also had the privilege of standing in deep mud. 😂

When I’d leave the “work area” and walk on the sidewalk, I’d have so much mud caked on the bottom of my shoe, I was two inches taller.

I also left footprints wherever I went.

But it was nice to have a physical, tangible goal.

That wall became my enemy and I attacked it from the muddy ground until the image started to not-so-magically appear.

In fact, we were moving along quite smoothly until I hit the apple tree.

Why an apple tree had been planted flush against a brick wall, I don’t know. The landscapers were clearly not arborists.

Yet, the little apple tree who was not planted to succeed did produce apples.

Go, apple tree.

I know the tree produced apples because I was then trying not to step on them as I tried to work around the motherflipping apple tree in my way.

The tree kind of threw off my routine. I was temporarily stopped in my tracks. Largely because I was exhausted, needed a break, and also because a honey bee was intensely upset with me.

Its fury probably had something to do with how I had its mud house on the bottom of my shoes and was also messing with the apple tree it depended on.

In any case, this bee would not quit. It had eyes for me only too. I ignored it until it was buzz-buzz-buzzing right in my face.

And then it chased me around the yard.

If anyone was home in the retirement housing which sits across the street, yesterday may have been quite entertaining for them.

The bee simply would not quit. I’d leave and come back, and the bee would be waiting for me.

I don’t like killing bugs or creatures or much of anything (except fruit flies and centipede children) so I wasn’t about to kill this bee.

And it was a honey bee which is a species that is dangerously endangered and on which our earthly existence depends.

I wasn’t going to kill a honey bee.

But eventually the bee tired out or died because that’s what they do now or something and I was able to get back to work.

And soon we reached the end of the day with about 3/4 the priming done. The rain started to pick up and we called it.

We had hoped to finish the priming today but, as it’s yet another super rainy day, we are going to wait to return to the site until tonight when the rain is supposed to clear so we can project the details onto the image.

And then tomorrow… we will finish the design prime, start the color and bring David’s design to life.

Huzzah!

Last night, while I iced my old body, we ended our day with hot chocolate and space.

That was nice. 🖤

Since Monday night we got chilled to the bone because it was suddenly cold outside, unexpectedly, Tuesday we got soaked to the bone and Wednesday we killed our physical selves in the cold rain, we’ll likely be dead from pneumonia soon.

So it’s good to drink hot drinks and appreciate the Halloween ambience while we still can.

🎃