Minnesota Mural Project: Water Is Life
It's been a minute, y'all! Sorry about that!
You should know, I've had my eyes on this mural all Fall as it's on the way to the compost site in my hood. Every time I drove by, I was so struck by the colors and always thought "Yowza---those colors would look spectacular against the Minnesota winter!"
So here I sat, as the snow fell down and I sipped my coffee, I thought "today is the day." Fresh snow, fresh year--and I deemed that called for some fresh blooms and a celebration of the color in this gorgeous mural.
This mural is located on the North side of E-Z Recycling at 875 North Prior Avenue, Saint Paul MN 55104. You should definitely make plans to stop and check this mural out. After, you can head down the block and grab my favorite "Laugh Now, Cry Later" IPA from Blackstack Brewing.
Flower Selections: lilac, oncidium orchids, spray allium, muscari, spray roses, and ranunculus.
MURAL INFORMATION
Artist Eric J. Garcia painted this mural with a host of volunteers for the 2019 Chroma Zone Mural and Art Festival, and titled the mural "Frontier Justice." Give them a "like," give them a "follow," should you so desire--us creatives love creative followers.
AND NOW WE GET TO IT. FINALLY.
Are you ready for a color-palooza that will shock your January eyes? Maybe close your left eye and just start slow with your right. Feel free to open up that left eye as your winter-eyes adjust to this luscious color. Baby steps y'all. It's January in Minny--all we see is snow.
I mean, COME ON WITH THIS COLOR! The scale of this mural is bananagrams--those windows are taller than me and I had to get about knee-deep in snow just to be able to capture the entire wall in one shot. Worth it.
I knew from scouting this mural out that I wanted to design something that could sit inside the window-sills. Look at those dainty beauts, framed in that rich red. This photo may forever live as my computer wallpaper.
(I also asked permission to access the sill too--because, well, we don't touch things that aren't ours. Feel free to follow me for more life skills, such as this.)
Below are a few more shots--a little something for everyone. I really enjoyed the nod to recycling in this mural...definitely dredged up some childhood memories and I think that calls for a fun fact.
Fun fact: growing up in a family-owed gas station & café, my sisters and I would spend hours lining up pop cans in the garage area of the gas station so my dad could come by and stomp his way through our winding trail, slightly resembling a giant dominos display.
We'd then follow behind him and pick up the crushed cans and toss them in giant boxes that he would load up and take to a recycling biz just like E-Z Recycling. That man totally had us tricked into thinking this was a fun game! Good one, dad.
As luck would have it, it seems like there is always an "EXIT" sign or similar that is gonna mess with my esthetic and hey, those things can be edited out, right?
Well, not for me--I'm not a photographer. I'm a florist with an iPhone and a small, dialed-in ego, so when I am blessed with a sign--I'm forced to celebrate it, because the word "edit," to me, means that I have to scrape out some of my taco fixings because the tortilla won't close. Sorry, cilantro.
So, to leave you...here is me, celebrating the sign that was in my way. At least it matched the color story. Arrow over for my answer when anyone asks me if I'd like to watch a horror movie.
Be well, and until next time,
Jessica
CALL TO ACTION: Compost your yard waste and recycle responsibly, please. For information on all things recycling google-monster "recycling near me," and get to it!