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When a property owner contacted me to paint a mural on his apartment building in Leucadia I thought it was a perfect match for me.  My grandpa owned a home about 100ft away on Vulcan Avenue, which he had bought for $12,000 in the mid-60s.

My mother spent her childhood there before he sold it in the early 70s when Leucadia got ‘too crowded’ for him. It was later torn down to make room for an apartment building, the usual story.  I grew up three blocks away in a small rental on the beach where my mother lived for about 35 years.  In my teens I did surfboard ding repair up the street in a bootleg shop on a 1-acre property, next to a half pipe, in the shade of avocado trees.  I remember the smell of resin and the sound of Bad Brains cassettes rattling the boom box.

My first concept for the mural was to plagiarize Bill Ogden’s ‘Forgotten Island of Santosha’ poster art and translate the imagery into Leucadian.  I did a rough sketch in pencil and thought it was worth pursuing a painted composition, but the client’s wife did not like the idea. 

My next idea was to dig deep into the Greek connection of Leucadia, which was named after the island of Lefkada due to the similar high bluffs towering over the shore.  I had already been planning to create a painting based on the tragedy of the poet Sappho, having traveled to Lefkada to shoot photo references of the same cliffs that she had  hurled herself from to end the pain of a broken heart.  

The next step was to hire a young olive skinned model to free-fall from my balcony down to a trampoline while I shot reference photos from above.  I even had a Greek lyre in my Etsy shopping cart to use as a prop.  

The client ignored my proposed concept but was clearly inspired by the Greek theme, leapfrogging with a text message: “It’s on Hermes street, maybe Hermes surfing at Ponto?”

“Love it!” I quickly responded, and immediately ordered a small bronze sculpture of Hermes aka Olympus.

The timeline was short to complete the mural; the client wanted it done ASAP so he could start using it for marketing.  I spent the next few days in my studio working on the composition.  I used the pose of the statue as my starting point, and to save time and money I was both the model and the photographer. 

Once I had the photo references I used the computer to give it a Greek-god physique and glowing bronze skin. 

Next I created a small scale oil composition and sent it to the client over the weekend, with a proposed Monday start.  

Once the thumbs-up emoji arrived from the client, the truck was loaded with paints, brushes, drop cloths, and a gridded layout.

Day one was spent transferring the outlines on the wall to scale and starting on Hermes face.  Once Hermes and his caduceus was completed on day three I was able to loosen up and cover some square footage with the large wave, water and sky.  It flowed relatively effortlessly.  After the background was complete I outlined Hermes in a yellow glow and removed the scaffolding. 

After 7 days onsite I sent the client a photo of the finished mural. He said there would be check ready at his office.  It was a quiet afternoon as I packed up my tools and leftover paints.  I caught myself day-dreaming about going back in time to sleepy 60’s Leucadia and buying a house with my earnings.

See this mural at 1403 Hermes Street, Leucadia CA