Day five of the epic Niwot mural extravaganza and I’m still loving it!!

 In fact, even though I have scheduled eight weeks (and possibly longer) to complete this crazy-huge project, today, only 5 days into the process, I had a moment of lamenting there are only seven more weeks to go.  I don’t want it to end.  But in my barely-practicing semi-Buddhist way, I decided to turn that momentary sense of loss into unbridled appreciation for this time and this experience, and all of the gifts and challenges that come with it.  Today’s gift and challenge dujour is my 4-wheel drive diesel powered 25′ scissor lift.  It let me down.  And not in the good way… 

So I called my dear friend Joni Jones over at Sunbelt rental who promptly sent over Dan who plugged in a tester thingy and immediately confirmed that yes, indeed, this machine is not functioning properly and the fact that I have been stranded up high, and then lowered and jerked and tossed about is not typical scissor lift behavior.  So this one is out and a new one is on its way.  In the same barely-practicing, semi-Buddhist way, I promise to be even more grateful for the new scissor lift than I was for this piece of (pardon my french…) “unreliable equipment” (please feel free to insert your own satisfying expletive). 

In order to avoid the searing heat of the day, I have been getting started with painting around 6am every morning,  and even though that is ridiculously early for a night owl artist, I have discovered that it is cool and quiet and so beautiful.  To my surprise, it turns out that 6am isn’t actually the middle of the night, there is daylight, and all of the monsters and scary things that roam the streets at night have all gone home.

And I usually have the wall to myself that early in the morning.  Not that I don’t adore my friends and neighbors and Niwot residents who come by throughout the day to say hello and check on the progress and ask if I need anything (seriously, they do that, even people I have never met…how sweet is that??  I love Niwot!!!)   But I do savor that quiet time by myself to plan the day’s design and process.  Oh, did I mention that  even though I have a full design sketch of the composition, and even though I have painted hundreds of murals, that I am completely making this up as I go along?  It’s true.  I have never (no one has ever) painted a 160′ corrugated metal wall next to the train tracks in 90+ degree heat while navigating an angry scissor lift!  So I am figuring it all out as I go, and it’s nice to have some quiet time in the morning, alone, to work things out in my head.   This morning, however, as I was setting up my supplies and getting ready to board the scissor lift of death, an older model pick-up truck that I didn’t recognize pulled around the corner of the building and drove slowly toward me.  The driver reminded me of my father, an octegenarian at one with his truck.  He had his window rolled down and was studying the mural as he slowly drove the length of the wall.  When he got up to where I was standing, he looked at me, gave me a nod and said, with all sincerity, “So what is that?  Art?”

So there you go.  That’s what I have carried in my heart all day.  He was so genuine and sincere, and just wanted to know what was going on.  It humbled me and made me smile, it made me appreciate these wonderful people and connections, and reminded me that I am the luckiest barely-practicing semi-Buddhist in the whole wide world.

This entry was posted on Saturday, July 23rd, 2011 at 4:18 am and is filed under Mural Update. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.