I had the opportunity summer 2022 to collaborate with Sunny Mueller and my son, Niko on a large wall mural in West St. Paul. Many thanks to the Minnesota State Arts Board for funding a project Sunny wrote which allowed me to honor her as a disabled artist while passing on my legacy of painting murals (planning, prep, grant-writing, and execution) onto my son Niko. I can’t say I won’t do more mural projects (train graffiti is a habit that’s hard to kick) but repetitively climbing three story scaffolding might start to become a challenge for this older trad rock climber:))
Transferring the image to the wall, I chose to use the “lazy grid (doodle grid)” method. First, Niko spray painted words (we chose words of affirmation like love, radiance, and happiness) and random shapes and symbols creating a lazy grid on the wall. Then, in photoshop, Sunny superimposed her design on top of the lazy grid and we transferred her line work onto the wall. After that, it was all paint.
final image to come...
Following the completion of the project we celebrated with an unveiling on July 17th. Dance instructor Keri Simonson gave salsa lessons, and the neighborhood came together to celebrate Sunny.
Sunny created a beautiful description of the project on her website that I’d like to share.
What Niko Selski is passionate about: