Mural painting in Antigua Guatemala using acrylics and the Pitaya as inspiration.
I thought it might be fun to republish this coming-of-age short story of my experience installing one of my first overseas, wall-to-wall murals. This took place in Antigua, back in 2014, during my second creative "sabbatical" as an artist. There are three installments total to this story.
Back to Creativity
As I hold the brush poised in mid-air, a scant millimeters away from the blank, rough surface of the unpainted, plaster wall, I take a deep breath. The spiny outline of the dragon, rendered in blue chalk, snaked around two walls of the small bedroom with tails, scales and horns.
Starting the sketch of the dragon in blue chalk
With the soundtrack of X-Men’s Sublift blaring in the background, I close my eyes and swallow hard. What did I just get myself into?
The events of the past few months play back behind my closed eyelids. They’re like fireflies blinking slowly in and out of existence inside my head. Here one instant, gone the next.
From the Bolivian Altiplano to the Spanish colonial town of Antigua, in Guatemala, I've been traveling for seven months straight seeking to connect with the energy of the most sacred and ancient sites on earth.
You could say I traveled by intuition - honing it like a sharp knife. With only 15 days left in Antigua, I’ve been ready for something creative that would allow me to experience a place more deeply, and slow down my pace even further. I actually enjoyed how I’ve been traveling so far (even thought at times, it wasn’t perfect).
No ties, no limits.
But also, no ties...no anchor.
It had gotten to the point where I wished I could kill the rest of the trip. Kill it dead and then kill it again.
I grew tired of traveling from place to place, for a few months or a few days at a time with nothing to show for it but loads of pictures, journals full of notes, hostel databases, sketches, drawings and fleeting friendships.
Stumbling Upon An Idea
Then I remembered Olivia in Barichara, Colombia, a 5 ft 11, dark-eyed, dark-haired kindred spirit with a soft voice and fire in her eyes.
We met at Tinto hostel and immediately clicked. She was back in Colombia for the second time and was traveling around painting black and white murals, cooking and building, in exchange for a bed to sleep in.
The solution was staring me in the face this whole entire time. This was it! I could totally do the same thing Olivia did! Research mode: on.
Shortly after that, I found my first host project listing on a fabulous work exchange website Workaway.. The property project listed was for a Bed & Breakfast that was also on Airbnb.. My project was to design and install a mural for a small guest bedroom.
From reading the property project profile, to contacting the host and arriving at his doorstep, it took me only two short days. As soon as I received the invitation, I hopped on a bus from Ecuador to Antigua, Guatemala, my final destination.
However, on the way I spent a full week exploring the magical and mysterious UNESCO World Heritage of Copan Ruinas in Honduras.
Events were happening so fast that I wondered, belatedly, if my host wasn’t the least bit concerned that I would turn out to be a serial killer.
30-yr old hanging ferns flourish at the Hotel Posada San Pedro where I stayed
On the positive side, I’d arrived first. He would be arriving the next day. I could get in, find my bearings, channel the spirit of the place to the best ability in order to start gathering potential themes and ideas. Besides, an AirBnB guest was already in the house or was soon to be. So...no problem.
Shortly thereafter, I moved out of the lovely Hotel Posada San Pedro, where I’d been staying since my arrival in Antigua on a rainy night. I took a colorful Tuk Tuk - a covered and rickety moto taxi - to the property while somehow trying to hold on to an oversized and embarrassingly beat up, scandalously orange, Rick Steves backpack and, or course, my ever precious Patagonia computer bag.
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Stay tuned for the second installment of Painting Dragons : A Journey Back to Creativity - Part Deux
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Public Announcement: This blog post was originally published during the holiday season in a Christmas jingle format. It is part of a collection of 354+ posts from my original Wordpress blog "Dreaming Into Being" library. I've now retired and migrated it to “Wander & Paint,” my new blog post at the United Wanderlust art shop. As time allows, I will be reviewing, editing, condensing, updating and releasing a number of these blog posts but not all of them.
Some posts require more precision surgery than others. I'll also probably be publishing new posts as the muse wills it and father time allows. This whole process may take a while but I think these blog post serve as great documentation of my process and reminds me of certain milestones. So, most of them will be made available again- at some point.
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