Part of an occasional series of articles about Sunnyside by SNA members. Local artist Cynthia Dragon recently painted a mural on the plywood window coverings at a local shop at Monterey and Foerster.
By Cynthia Dragon
My husband Jim goes to Kwik & Convenient each morning to get his newspaper. I had been looking at the bare plywood covered windows measuring 8’ tall x 36’ long for a few weeks, and I asked my husband to see if shop owner Prince would like a mural. YES.
From there I showed Prince a few sketches and he picked one. Next step to find paint donations. It took a few weeks of going to Recology early on Thursday mornings to beg for free recycled landlord white paint, but others usually beat us to it.
Finally we came away with two 5-gallon buckets. Jim and I purchased some supplies and handed them over to Prince to get someone to base coat the wood.
Jim, my niece Jackie, and I measured and snapped chalk lines to make a grid. I began laying in the lettering. Now we looked for more paint. White, plus the basic color wheel. I was able to talk a hardware person into filling three small paint cans with pigment only. He said this wasn’t going to work… but it did!
Jim moved the ladder around for me the septuagenarian. When it came to the lettering at the highest point I stood back and drew with a laser beam flashlight and Jackie followed my path with chalk. She helped to choose the colors and fill in the letters.
John Q Public passed by the whole time commenting on how good it made them feel. One man wanted to discuss the political meaning of this art. A sun, poppies, and a bee? I was kind of speechless. It was quite simply ‘happy art’ – to be uplifting.
For people who got off the 43-Masonic bus after it came up Foerster Street and turned left onto Monterey Boulevard, the mural is the first thing they see entering our Sunnyside neighborhood, and there were many complimentary comments.
I finished on the day of my 43rd wedding anniversary. Prince was pleased.
It was about a total of seven days at maybe three hours a stretch. No. Really. A stretch!
Written with help from Jim and Jackie.
Sunnyside Neighborhood Association 