Designs on walls – a weekend to prepare!

For the first two days we accompanied Isidora to the town hall. Even though I had seen this building in photo’s and looked on it up on  google earth, nothing could prepare us for the size of the place. It’s an imposing, colonial styled building. It’s also very white and clinical looking.

Later we would hear the charismatic  Mayor  describe it as “looking like a hospital”. The previous white tiles that had been on the lower section on the wall had been removed. The surface was skimmed with a  rough cement. The wall section above this line had also been prepared by having the previous white paint scraped off. 

Looking at the size of the prepared surface allowed you to finally take in the scale  of this intervention.  The Chilean team was attempting to mosaic nearly the entire front of this building – and turn it into a huge old building, overgrown with thorns and roses and beautiful creatures. From the design on paper it looked like a fairytale illustration – the classic enchanted castle – all that was missing was a princess.

But that was on paper and as yet there was only a few actual drawings on the walls. Isidora was drawings of flowers onto the wall. Each International artist was to have their own rectangle (about 1.5 m x 1m) complete with a chalked outline of a flower stetching on the  wall and many colour reference photos relating to this plant. They would be able to change this drawing but these sketches allowed them to consider the scale of the work and how they would relate to the next artist along. Also there is nothing so daunting than the blank canvas, so Isidora wanted to provide those artists who came without their own designs a starting point to work from. On this project there would be so little time to consider our own design, which is why I had come well prepared. My partner and artistic collaborator Thayen Rich had given me a black and white line drawing  and a couple of colour versions of our design.  The Treatment Rooms collective had come up with the idea of a lovely little mound of ‘Fly Agaric” mushrooms.

While Isidora  and her assistant Margarita Venegaz effortlessly chalked up over 60 designs we spent the next two days drawing up our double section of wall. After the chalk outline you are ready to commit to the definitive permanent black marker pen.  We also watched as Maria Gacitua and her brother Claudio Gacitua drew up the designs on the entrance of the town hall. These siblings work with another brother to form the mural arts team “Brigad Negotropica”
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Brigada-Negotr%C3%B3pika/212027702314223?fref=ts

It looks like we will be ready for Monday now  –  but that was after watching Isidora working all over the weekend and late into the night to get the designs finished. 

As we drive back to our little camp in the mountains, I feel  the calm before the storm.  Tomorrow the town hall will come alive and all the artists will finally come together to meet for the first time.  Kick off tomorrow at 9.30am.