This is a mural I just recently painted in Sedona, Arizona, commissioned by
Whole Foods for their store there. The embracing figures are based on my mother-in-law and her granddaughter. I hope this mural might convey some sense of the positive influence of familial love and joy, as I've seen the impact of these on my mother-in-law while she has been going through cancer treatment the last few years. The mural is also a sort of southwestern homage to one of my favorite artists, the great Austrian symbolist painter
Gustav Klimt. The mural is based on a section of Klimt's
Beethoven Frieze, from 1902, which was inspired by a Beethoven symphony from 1824, which was inspired by a Friedrich Schiller poem from 1785. That poem, the infamous 'Ode To Joy', begins with the line: 'Joy, beautiful spark of divinity...'
Thanks to my good friend and Arizona aerosol pioneer
Mando Rascón for his help with the background designs.
Thanks to Whole Foods and
Carlo Carbajal for making such a cool public art project possible.
Thanks to Saichai, Madeleine, Kim, Jorge Bracamonte,
Peter Votichenko & the Votichenko family, Marisa Aragon, Fernando Ramos, Corey @
ACE,
Tamaliza, the good people of Sedona, and anyone else that provided encouragement or support.
