June 1st, Our 84th Vero Beach Mural Painting Session

NOTE: The Vero Beach Mural Project is being Sponsored by the Vero Beach Art Club as a gift to the City.  The artist members of the Vero Beach Art Club who are volunteering their time and talents are Dawn Mill (Project Manager), Christine Thomas (www.innerspacesandouterplaces.com), and Judy Burgarella (http://www.burgarellaart.com/).   Examples of artists' work can also be found on www.verobeachartclub.org/.  The Mural consists of six stretched canvas panels, 36' long by 8' high, each panel 8' x 6'.  Created in and for the Community Center, in their "Florida Room," 2266 14th Avenue, Vero Beach, Florida USA, 772-978-4592.  Visitors are welcome to watch the artists paint between 10:00 a.m. and 2:00 p.m. on Mondays and Fridays.

Our working area

Today we had all day to paint, although tonight was the Gallery Stroll on 14th Avenue (11 art galleries) so we had to cut it a bit short to pitch in with the Artists Guild Gallery opening.  But a lot was accomplished, and we are so-o-o-o close to being finished.  Although there are many images I would have loved to clutter up my two canvases with, I'm calling it done.  So I spent the time today painting the sides of everyone's canvases, rather roughly following the patterns around the edges.  I got a little fussy in case the panels are ever shown by themselves.  The first and last panel sides will be totally visible when installed, so I took special care of that.  I also made "booties" out of heavy clear vinyl and duct tape for the corners, to replace the brown tape I had used when we started this project, almost a year ago.  The brown tape had to be removed in order to finally paint the corners.  Canvases have been jostled around an incredible amount of times, actually moved 2 x 84 or 168 times, not including the many times we had to shuffle them around for a variety of reasons.  We're not complaining, but it's been an incredibe amount of work that could only be done by three friends who paint alike and get along.  How rare is that? And we're better friends now than we were when we started--even more rare.

Anyhoo, we joked about my being the chump who is done but now has to do the grunt work of painting edges and making booties, and I made fun of the fact that I'm done and they're not.  All in good fun, and I did manage to squeeze in some time to paint this cute little turtle in between making booties.

Turtle by Judy Burgarella

. . . which is nothing compared to Christine's fabulous sea turtle flying through the ocean!



Christine Thomas' fabulous turtle, with another one in progress

Christine's underwater world is stunning, and her energies need to be devoted to that, so I will try to scumble in the sunrise atop her panel next time. 

Christine Thomas at the canvas, creating her own little underwater world

Dawn is in the process of painting a duck family and they are coming along nicely.  A few more tweaks then she'll move onto her opossum family. 

Dawn Mill working on her duck fmaily near the water's edge

 Installation is scheduled the end of June, if all goes well and manpower and supplies are at the ready.  We can hardly wait to see the canvases up and on display all together.  A shindig is being planned for the fall when things lively up a little and people come back to their own little piece of paradise.  We are tossing around ideas for legends, binders or the like, to explain and elaborate on the many images we've painted.  To see this year-long project come to an end is pretty exciting for us, considering that we've devoted most of our Mondays and Fridays (and some other days) to the mural.  We're pretty proud of it, and hopefully the City and the Vero Beach Art Club will take pride in it too--it's quite a gift to the City of Vero Beach. 

There may be a call for donations if needed, as we realize that both the old mural and the new mural could use some protective lucite covering on the bottoms and corners.  Scratches and scrapes can be seen on the old mural, which we plan to repair.  There are other needs regarding the mural, but more about that later.  For now, if anyone would like to see us at work before we wind up the project, come by the Community Center Monday or Friday, best time is between 10:00 a.m. and 2:00 p.m.  You'll see that it's been quite a productive year.
Ciou!
Judy Burgarella
Blogger for the Vero Beach Mural Project