In 2001, The Mainplace Merced Public Art project was my first large scale public art commission at the age of 22. 



​Up until this point I have only painted murals and nothing to this scale.  It was commissioned by the city of Merced CA which is my home town. I had already been known for painting murals and being very involved with the Merced County Arts Center volunteering, doing mural projects with kids and teaching art to children with special needs. During the selection process I was disheartened to find that my mentor and teacher at the time, Jamie Brzezinski, who was the head of the art department at Merced's community college was also applying for this commission.  In fact he was listed on my resume as a reference! You could imagine how surprised we both were when I won. Unfortunately this experience led me to drop out of art school for a long time.



        The four large panels you see in the pictures were actually only half of the original commission. There was an additional four panels on the south facing wall of the building, the total budget being $150,000. Near the end of the selection process only me and veteran public artist John Pugh were in competition for the entire project. The city of Merced redevelopment agency decided to split the project giving me four panels for $56,000 and John Pugh the remaining four panels for $100,000. It was because of this that I met John Pugh and eventually worked with him on his projects at his Los Gatos CA studio for the next four or five years, this experience was a milestone in my development as artist and he remains good friend and creative influence to this day.

          On September 11, 2001. I was in the midst of installing “Omnicycle”, the left-center panel. I was overcome by the events of that day and immediately redesigned the yet to be installed far right panel to memorialize 9/11. I brought this idea to the redevelopment agency however they insisted I proceed with the project as planned. At the time I remember almost being in tears over their decision until I realized later that if they wanted to commission a memorial to 9/11, that should be the plan from the beginning and other artists should be able compete for that opportunity.



I still have the conceptual drawing somewhere, it's actually really good.



DESIGN



        I remember walking past the site of the artwork on the way to my nighttime telemarketing job when I saw the four huge, blank panels and realized this is the location of that big  public art commission everyone was talking about.  I sat on the steps of the federal building across the street in the rain and stared at the wall long enough to make me late for work. When I arrived at my desk I produced a sketchbook, as I did every night, and began to draw my ideas concepts for this project. The whole process seems to only take about 30 minutes which did not surprise me because over my years of working there I had generated literally and encyclopedia set sized stack of sketch books filled with doodles and design concepts for something just like this.

         Each piece actually has very specific conceptual content however I generally refrain from sharing this information after the work is completed to prevent contaminating  the average viewers perception of the artworks meaning.



FABRICATION & INSTALLATION



I wasn't surprised I was able to pull this project off, but I was surprised that I was able to convince the city council that I could.  Having been strictly a painter up until this point,  I had never even laid hands on a ceramic tile or a power tool for that matter. Needless to say it took every penny of the available budget to see that this project was executed the right way.

  I hired another mentor at the time Hans Mainz, A well known Santa Barbara building contractor and yacht builder, who owned and restored a beautiful historical theater in Merced. Hans and his company were there for me to make sure all aspects of the fabrication and installation went off without a hitch.

  11 years later this artwork has never been vandalized and looks as good as it did on the day of unveiling.