Jody Cedzidlo Reports on her 2006 SURF Project

        My project this summer, painting murals on the wall of a local theater, truly was a learning experience. I experienced and solved unforeseen problems ranging from the community involvement aspect to equipment, mural design, vandalism, rain, heat, and personal exhaustion. However, I have still managed to complete on mural and part of a second one, and I am still actively working on this second mural. In fact, I have no plans to stop until I have finished all three, but my refusal to sacrifice quality has slowed my process considerably.
        My project depended on community involvement, but it was hard for me to find a personal compromise between my desire to involve local residents as deeply as possible and my desire to execute a sharp, controlled mural. My two goals--to increase residents' sense of ownership over their community and to promote myself for future commissions--might have been inherently conflicting. While both of these goal sets are still present in my mind, I've realized I'll have to give one ro the other top priority for future projects.
        As these philosohical and political qualms were soothed, they were replaced by logistical ones. I began the project with a very specific design that I thought could be achieved with a paint sprayer--and I also believed the paint sprayer would speed the process so much that each mural would require only 3-4 weeks' work. I quickly found, however, that my paint sprayer was inappropriate for the task, and during the course of the first mural, I bought three separate paint sprayers, tried them each for several days, and returned them all; rented an enormous sprayer and air compressor for a brief stint; resorted to experimentation with an old-fashioned squirt bottle; re-organized my entire design around the new knowledge that I'd be using paint brushes only; learned how to mix paint to be almost completely transparent so I could use layering effects; and "messed up" the mural with those layering techniques. In the end, I re-primed and repainted the bottom third of the first mural, but now I am a veritable expert in various types of paint, effective translucency and layering, and brush control. The second mural was a breeze, as I'm sure each successive one will be.
        Environmental factors, also, are a huge concern that I now know I must consider in the future. Not only will I take into consideration factors like intense heat, incessant rain, and my own inevitable exhaustion, but also some factors I've just learned about, such as "substrate". In painting terms, this means the surface you're painting, which cannot, as I have learned, be hot. In direct sunlight, the Lumina's aluminum substrate grows too hot to be painted--that meant that for the first mural, I could only paint after 3:00pm. For the second mural, however, it is ideal to be finished for the day by 11:00am.


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