foxwood shop mural

At the end of August, I was preparing to move, had just become keenly aware I’d be out of a job in a month, and decided to take matters into my own hands. So naturally, I posted on Instagram, as one does. I shared color palette ideas based on paints that I have sitting around in my studio, in hopes that someone would be interested in a little discount mural, I could save us both money on supplies, and I could get some work in to support myself and my move and any number of other things. 

I posted, hoping maybe a few people would think about it. Almost immediately, my friend Jimi reached out to me about her woodshop. If you don’t know her, she’s so damn cool. She runs a business called Foxwood and makes gorgeous woodwork pieces. Cutting boards, coasters, boxes, all kinds of things. Colby got me a tarot card box from her last year for Christmas and I am obsessed with it. 

So Jimi reached out, she had a couple of inspiration photos that got me going in the right direction and then I worked on a mock up for her at the end of September (after moving and traveling, and all the other things). One of my favorite things about working with her is that she’s also a creative and she understands the “ugly phase” of a project. So I sent her a very chaotic sketch to get the idea going and get her approval instead of making it nice and shiny before getting feedback. Frankly, I should do that more often anyways because it’s faster and more effective. 

After getting the greenlight, I cleaned it up, made the lines straight, the colors correct, and the scale precise. And then it was go time. 

One thing that was different about this project, her woodshop is in the garage of her home and up till now had pretty unfinished walls that needed a little love. I offered to come in ahead of the mural and just help with priming and painting the walls of the whole space so that it would all be ready to be reset and usable. I don’t usually get the opportunity to paint alongside my friends, but it was really fun to spend a couple of days just chatting and painting and getting the space prepped before coming in and going mural mode. 

When I got to the house to actually do the mural install, I realized I forgot a very important HDMI to USB cable at home and couldn’t project the design to the wall and trace it. So I had to go hard mode and measure everything out by hand. Luckily, I was in a woodshop so there was a tape measure, a level, and a spare piece of wood lying around that made easy work of it. I couldn’t help but think about how cool it was that I have the skills to scale my work up like that without using a projector or other high tech tools like VR goggles or something. It felt very back-to-basics in a way that I loved. And I had spent enough time drawing and editing the shapes and thinking about the exact placement of the lines that I could confidently draw everything by hand and get it pretty dang close to perfect without projecting. Not to always bring up how much I hate AI, but I could only do that because I personally drew the design and had developed skills over time to do it. AI could never. 

I’m so happy with how this project worked out. Both the mural itself and the experience of doing it. I love working with friends and other creatives, and I love when I get to do both! I can’t wait to see the shop fully set up again with my art in the background bringing just a little more life to the space. Jimi is truly so cool and so fun to spend time with, I hope everyone gets something from her and helps her business grow!