I'm Lisa Alleman and this is my new art blog. Welcome!
It's actually spring of 2013, not the summer of 1992 as the date listed for this post suggests. I've started this blog as a way to keep a history of my art for myself and to create a simple way to view and share pictures of my projects. Not because I'm particularly good or aspiring to anything specific, but just because I enjoy it.
I picked August of 1992 to retro date this first entry because that was around the time that I painted my first mural. I was 16 and had just moved back into my childhood home with my mother after my parent's divorce. It had been a hard couple of years for my family and I was so happy to finally be getting some closure and to be back in my own room. I wanted to not only paint it, but to paint a mural on it that really represented who I felt I was. In retrospect I think it was similar to the "mark my territory" behavior of some animals, but at the time I only remember feeling like I desperately needed some self expression. I'm not sure if my mom trusted me and had enough faith in my artistic skills to allow me to do it, or if she was just so exhausted from the last few years of her life that she didn't care what happened. Either way, she agreed and in typical teenage fashion I jumped in, head over heels and started slapping paint all over the walls. It wasn't until the project was well underway that I realized I didn't know what I was doing and should have had a plan before I got started.
I attempted to paint an amazing under the sea themed mural. I wanted to be surrounded by bright coral, exotic fish, cool and unusual plants, and maybe even a predator or two. I remember wanting to paint it like a "real artist." I had a vision of Bob Ross in my mind starting with a blank canvas and without ever looking at a picture, referencing a plan, or ever being stumped about what to paint next. He created beautiful works of art with effortless precision, and always ending with a masterpiece in half an hour. That was how I wanted to paint, and that is exactly what I did... well, kind of.
Turns out, I only knew how to paint a select few different kinds of fish and I knew virtually nothing about the other ocean elements that I had envisioned in my mind. I attempted a shark and in my mind I couldn't ever really resolve why all those fish would be swimming around that big shark anyway unless they all had a death wish. The mural just didn't make sense to me once I saw it. I did the best I could at the time without stepping foot into a library or an art store, but it was never really "finished" the way I wanted it to be. School started up shortly after that, it was my Senior year, my priorities shifted and I ended up painting over the whole thing the following summer.
The bummer about it is 1992 was a time before digital cameras, Internet, computers in every home, and to take a picture of something required not only the advance planning of finding the camera and buying film, but paying for the developing afterwards. There was no digital upload, or email and it never occurred to me to preserve the memory of the effort, so I didn't take many pictures of it. In looking though my photo archives the best I could find was this photograph that I was trying to take of a friend. He didn't want his picture taken and is holding a stuffed animal in front of his face, but you can see part of the mural in the background.
I'll keep looking and if I ever find more pictures I'll post them.
At the time it never occurred to me that this fish mural would matter to me later in life, but it taught me two very important things.
- I really liked painting on walls. There is a thrill to painting on large walls that doesn't come from a tiny little canvas.
- "Real Artists" have to work hard at their craft and if I ever wanted to paint anything again I would have to be willing to dedicate some time to it.
It would be six years before I'd have an opportunity to paint another mural, and another 7 before I'd register myself as a business under the name Brighton Murals.
I still use the name Brighton Murals, but this blog will likely contain much more than murals. I consider myself a little bit of a jack of all trades, master of none. I've gotten myself involved in all kinds of random projects that I might be inclined to post pictures of! You just never know what you'll find here, but whatever it is, I hope you'll enjoy.
