Public Art Mural Consultant

I am a public art mural consultant based in Los Angeles, CA. My specialty is in community focused art projects that creates landmarks and brings value to a neighborhood. First off, I am a mural artist myself and I’ve designed and painted many murals myself throughout the years. In addition, I’ve consulted and project managed hundred of mural projects for other artists across the country. As a result, I’ve built an extensive nationwide network of artists, vendors and suppliers to help make your project go as smooth as possible. Today, my passion is to help build community by bringing the joy of public art murals to various clients looking for guidance.

Note: This is a blog post and this project has NO RELATION to the Greetings Tour project.

Unincorporated Mural Project

This is a case study of a successful community mural project in Altadena, CA. I worked with Unincorporated Coffee to create an outdoor gallery for the neighborhood that worked with the branding aesthetics of the company. You can check out the rotating public murals at 3021 Lincoln Ave. Altadena, CA 91001. Artists can apply by emailing mural@unincorporated.coffee to request a RFP package.

Project Overview

I previously painted a mural nearby at Highlight Coffee. During the days I was working, a few people brought up another mural nearby that was unfortunately painted over a few years ago. I did some research and found the location of the previous artwork which was now a blank white wall. There’s some conflicting stories about what happened to the previous mural but the goal was to look forward in a positive light to bring back more public art to the community.  In fact, one of my goals was to even bring back the previous mural artist for another piece if they were open to it.

I reached out to the business that now occupied the location (Unincorporated Coffee) to see if they would be interested in re-purposing their wall for this community project. Coming from a background in street art, many of us are used to our work being temporary contrary to the archival nature of fine art. As a result, I wanted to give opportunities to as many talented local artists as possible with this program by using just one wall.

Step 1 - Client Discovery

As a mural consultant, I need to ask the right questions and figure out the client’s goals. After some initial conversations with the coffee shop, we identified a list of goals that aligned with their brand values. Some of these goals included:

• Creating a neighborhood landmark

• Supporting local artists

• Encourage interactive photo ops to drive traffic

• Integrate mural into branding

When it comes to public art, it’s often hard to measure results in a traditional format. Art is subjective and there’s no way to satisfy everyone at once. We wanted to balance the true intent of an artist with the broad public taste palettes. Therefore, the idea of this rotating mural project helps expose the public to various styles of artwork over time.

Step 2 - Solutions to Goals

A permanent mural in itself creates a visual landmark. However, the concept for this project was to change the artwork every year. Therefore, we decided to utilize an adjacent smaller wall as an anchoring point. We helped design and paint a permanent mural that tied into the coffee shop’s brand. This creative signage was not a part of the public art project but it would always match with the artwork and helped with the landmark element.

A single mural would only support one artist but our goal was to provide a yearly grant to various artists. Everyone who applies would be aware that their mural would be temporary. This helps create several opportunities for upcoming artists. In addition, we reserved a section of the wall to feature the artist name and include a QR code that brings them to the artist bio. This project also teaches the community over time to not be scared of change. Over time, people will be excited to see what the new mural will look like. Truly supporting artists means giving them creative freedom with their own intent. Our only guideline is that it can’t be anything offensive since it’s public facing.

The rotating mural project will draw a different art appreciating crowd to the coffee shop who may not have been aware of them. Every artist will bring their own following and introduce them to the neighborhood. The wall is also perfectly sized with enough room to back up to capture interactive photos.

Lastly, we came up of a mural concept of keeping it mainly black and white to tie into their branding. This way, we could purchase supplies (black and white paint) in bulk that could always be used for touch ups and for future artists. Artists will always have the opportunity to use other pops of color but we would at least supply the black and white paint.

Step 3 - Curation

We now had a plan on how to create a successful mural project. The next step was to curate some artists for the inaugural mural. The role of a curator is selecting artists based on what they personally like or think fits. Once again, this is subjective when it comes to public opinion. I do not consider myself a gatekeeper and the final selection should be agreed upon by all parties.

My goal was to provide a variety of artists who’s natural style fit with the goals. Therefore, I picked artists who worked primarily in black and white as their main palette. Secondly, their location played a big factor and it was ideal if they were local. During this curation process, I discovered so many amazing artists that I had no idea were local. It definitely gave us many future options.

After carefully selecting and narrowing down many artists, we felt that local artist Brendan Monroe would be a great fit for the inaugural mural! His work was usually in black and white and the style was abstract. His murals are often used as backdrops in photos too.

Step 4 - pre-production

Many people underestimate the amount of pre-production work that goes into painting a mural before a brush even touches the wall! You can see a previous case study mural video I created that shows the work the goes into pre-production work.

The absolute most important step to the creation of any outdoor mural is the proper preparation of the surface! This step is often overlooked and can lead to larger issues if not done correctly. We connected the client with a local contractor to make some minor repairs. Afterwards, we helped clean and prime the wall to prepare it for the artist.

As a local artist, I donated by own supplies to help with this project. I wanted to see amazing artists come to paint in our community so this was my personal contribution. Some of the supplies I provided included a paint sprayer, scaffolding, generator, projectors and ladders.

We decided to do an interactive temporary “Loading…” mural until the artist could come start the piece. We added a few bars to this every week until the mural started. This was a fun little last minute addition!

Step 5 - production / Painting

Finally, we coordinated dates for the artist to start painting his design. Since most of his design had a black background, we actually helped him paint the background black with our paint sprayer. Afterwards, he sketched the mural out freehand with chalk. It took the artist about 4-5 days to complete this mural.

Project Results

We were able to achieve all of the Coffee Shop’s goals with this mural project. The community is also very excited about this project and many have mentioned how this has really improved the look of this location. Be sure to come back to check out the new murals that will pop up every year.

If you are interested in a mural consultation, you can reach me (Victor Ving) at: info@greetingstour.com or call 626-219-2808