“This is crazy,” Ashley said. “Right?”
“Yeah, the schedule’s tight but doable. Nothing can go wrong but I think it can be done.”
We were staring at our August calendar trying to envision painting two very different murals in two very distant locations within the span of three weeks: one in Minnesota, the other across the Atlantic in rural Belgium.
“Yeah, that’s crazy, “ I conceded. “But we do crazy stuff sometimes.”
August turned out to be our month of murals. And in case you haven’t guessed it by now, yes we decided to take both jobs and yes, we somehow pulled off painting them both within three weeks. Two very different mural opportunities with two very different origin stories: The Bloomington Ferry and The Brewer. “How did you get to do this mural?” is THE most common question we get asked about these projects. Well, read on dear reader and you shall find out.
The Bloomington Ferry mural all started with a bag of mini-donuts. An unsuspecting fella was dragged to the Edina Art Fair by his wife and decided to treat himself to a tasty bag of fried goodness. While enjoying the delicious little morsels, this fella was surprised to find some art that actually caught his eye. He meandered into the booth where he met a young(ish) artist and his wife. They told him how they had just quit their jobs in Colorado to go on the road with their little two-year old son to sell art full-time. Less than their personal backstory, this fella was drawn to the paintings hanging on the mesh walls of the tent and the visual story that they wove. Like thousands before and after him, he settled on taking a card and continuing on with his bag of little round yum-yums. He stopped to glance back one more time as he hustled to catch up with his wife.
With some friends at the Edina Art Fair circa 2015. The very first festival we did after quitting our jobs. We were so green.
Eight years later, this fella is developing a large swath of land in Bloomington, Minnesota, just south of the Twin Cities. He is building a massive mixed-use building complete with condos and a grocery store and he thinks to himself, “This building could use some art.” Shuffling through his desk, he somehow finds the card he had taken eight years prior from that young(ish) artist who paints the long-legged workers. There are still a few crystals of brown sugar on the card from his mini-donuts and he brushes them off before shooting out an email and moving on with his busy day. The email lands in Michigan, where a now less-young(ish) artist is pretending to be working. “Hmmmmmm…”, the artist thinks.
Ashley and I begin the dance of seeing if this mural opportunity has legs (pun intended). The part of the building where the mural is planned is actually two separate walls about 80’ apart. After a lot of research (thank you Bloomington Historical Society!), Ash and I finally find a story that catches our eye: The Bloomington Ferry. The city of Bloomington is located along the Minnesota River and just upstream from where the mural would be located, there is a spot on the river where a hand-pulled ferry once plied the waters. The Bloomington Ferry was developed in 1852 and was pulled by workers across the river until 1892, when it was replaced by a bridge, which still stands today (The Bloomington Ferry Bridge).
The photo inspiration for The Bloomington Ferry Mural provided by the Bloomington Historical Society.
Our mural design quickly came to life as we saw the opportunity to feature both the ferry pullers and the ferry itself, complete with a ferryman and passengers. In the distance behind the ferry passengers, the first pillars of The Bloomington Ferry Bridge would be visible, a vestige of the structure that would replace the ferry coming into existence. A rope connecting the two would span the 80’ of wall between the murals and also serve as a captivating visual element. We mocked it up and the fella in Minnesota loved it as much as we did. We nailed down a commission rate and a date in early August and the project was a go.
The mock-ups for The Bloomington Ferry Mural in Bloomington, MN.
Meanwhile, another fella in Belgium had been in touch with us about a much older wall at a brewery he was renovating. The Feys Brewery (Brouwerij Feys) was a five-generation brewery in rural Belgium and after ceasing operations in 1967, it sat for more than 40 years until an enterprising Belgian bought it up. His plan was to renovate the brewery and bring it back to life as an event space. He was hosting workers and wanderers to come and stay at this historic complex in exchange for work on the massive project. He saw a profile we had created on a website called Workaway and jumped at the chance. We could come and paint a massive mural on the outer courtyard of the brewery and he would give us a place to stay and feed us, along with paying for all the supplies.
“Belgium? What’s that like?”, we wondered and we considered the cost vs. benefit of going there to paint a mural on our own dime. In the end, our wanderlust got the best of us and we decided to go for it. When else would we get a chance to paint on a centuries-old building in Belgium? Never! So Ashley found an incredible airline deal and we booked flights for the whole family to fly in and out of Paris from Chicago, taking trains to and from Belgium to paint the mural.
The rudimentary mock-up for the The Brewer Mural in Belgium.
All of this was slated to happen in the first three weeks of August: drive our van full of our family and supplies to Minnesota, paint the mural in a week or less, drive back to Michigan, fly to Paris, train to Belgium, paint a mural there in a week or less, soak up as much family European vacation time as possible, fly back to Chicago, recover just in time to send the boys to their first of school. Sounds crazy, right? Well, somehow we decided that this was a solid plan.
Stay tuned for Part Two in a few weeks to see how our crazy plan actually turned out…