The Twins’ Mural, 2017
4’ x 12’, acrylic paint, graphite and colored pencil on 140# watercolor paper
This is a mural for, and in honor of, my first two grandchildren, Everett and Verena, twins born in 2016, and it is hung in their bedroom.
Early on in our mural design discussions, my son Ash mentioned how much he liked the various visual perspectives that I had included in the large drawing, “Big Green”, of “The Quartet.” The concept sketch that we chose included a cosmic background theme behind four worlds drawn in a sharply receding perspective planes: 1) Sky World, 2) Water World, 3) Flora/Fauna World and 4) The Void (the Void contained images of more conceptual and advanced ideas including mathematic and scientific principles and diagrams and some visual riddles.
The center of the cosmic background includes the Big Bang which expands in all directions containing our sun and the eight planets. Anchoring the composition are two “windows” at the left and right edge of the mural, perhaps interpreted as windows in the bedroom. The four worlds were joined in various ways across the cosmic background by “bridge” elements. The mural also includes references or symbols representing key people and events in the Twins’ lives.
Almost all of the murals in this section of my book are related to architectural design projects and intended to echo or reflect the design of the space around them. The Twins’ Mural is unique, but does relate to the Burlington Vermont Airport “SkyGate” Murals of 2004. The SkyGate Murals were a quartet of distinct worlds (Art, Science, Language and Space). Like the Twins’ Mural they were also bristling with detail and full of references to expanded ideas.
