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Copyright © 1998 Steve Della Maggiora
I
n 1996, my dear friend Bonnie, on whose web page this one was originally stored,
talked me into bidding on an enormous historical mural in Petaluma. I stayed up the whole night
before the bid was due, making a composite drawing from stacks of
xerox's of old photos from Adair Lara's book, "History of Petaluma."
Q
uite against my expectations, the Petaluma Leadership Group
chose my bid for the mural, thereby forcing me to face the prospect of
having to actually paint it. An entire year of obsessive worrying passed
before the funding was obtained.
D
uring this time I scanned my original sketch
into a computer and enlarged and refined the drawing, adding onto the
right end a dairy scene
that was deemed necessary for the project to proceed. A version of
the sketch was printed out and painted in, for the Leadership Group's
use as a fund raising tool. Another version of the sketch was printed
out with a one-inch grid superimposed on it, for me to use to transfer
the design to the wall. Work on the wall itself began September of 1997.
I
mmediately after Labor Day the scaffolding went up, and I
started drawing on the wall with my little 4H pencil. First I laid out a
horizon line - a straight horizontal line the length of the wall -
not an easy job, considering how lumpy and uneven the wall is.
Hunks of duct tape were the key. I put one at the right end,
and another at the left end, as level as I could make it - tape tabs,
sticking out of the wall. Then, by eye, I put more tabs between
those, and more between those, until I had a straight line of tape tabs.
Connecting these tabs with a ruled pencil line gave me my horizon line.
F
ive feet above and below this line I drew parallel lines,
marking the top and bottom of the mural, joined by ten foot half
circles at either end. (A dark one foot border painted around this area,
just so I could see where the mural was going to be, was later turned
into a rock wall frame.)
T
hen I measured out one-foot squares, above and below the horizon
line, wherever important details were. These squares corresponded to the one-inch
squares on the sketch. Square by square, it took about three weeks
to get most of the design drawn - rather crudely - onto the wall.
O
n the last day of summer, September 22, the contract was
finally signed and I was able to begin painting. For the next six months,
whenever it wasn't raining or I had other obligations, I was on the wall,
in 100 F. days of t-shirts and cut offs and on days of freezing fog,
wearing gloves, three shirts, two pairs of pants, two jackets, and a hat.
T
he sky went in quickly, taking three days and a gallon of white paint.
The rest of the mural took the rest of six months.
Finished drawings replaced the rough layouts and were painted in sequence,
moving left to right down the scaffold on the upper half of the mural,
until I reached the egg processing warehouse, which required the top and
bottom to be planned and painted simultaneously. The riverboats and the
dairy scene were also done as a whole. When I backtracked to paint the
lower half of the train I found the drawing to be off by about an inch
from the top half. Redrawing time! Many erasers were used in this project.
T
he Miwok village was the last thing to be painted.
Preserving the proper perspective the whole length of the wall was a
major challenge. Making the Miwoks the right size took many tries.
D
espite 40" of rain falling, I managed to get it finished
by the end of February, 1998. I feel fortunate to have
gotten the job, and to have completed it.
T
he money I received for painting this mural has gone
(besides to the IRS) almost entirely to buy the computer I've wanted for
years- a Mac 9600 - along with the requisite scanner and printer - and a
PARIS digital audio workstation. Now, if I can only get some time
to play with them...
