Having your father as a commercial insurance agent has its perks. After getting a referral from friend Carrie Corella, owner of Nora cupcakes my father gained Chu Nygo owner of Lan Chi’s Vietnamese restaurant as a client and with that my introduction as well! 🙂 The Lan Chi restaurant mural was a bit of a challenge but a welcome one to say the least. With difficulties on picking a composition for the mural and time running out with the opening of the restaurant around the corner I thought it was a good idea to move my studio into a new location. Almost from an episode of hoarders we moved 7 years worth of “stuff” 6 doors down into my new studio spot. Amid the chaos I was going back and forth with the wonderful Chu and her ever funny husband Lam on what we were actually going to paint! My initial design for Lan Chi’s Vietnamese restaurant was turned down. After going through three more designs I received an email from Chu stating that she just wasn’t excited about any of the new ideas I had shown her. Frankly I wasn’t either. She ask me what I thought and what I wanted to paint. I said that I really wanted to paint the original idea I had shown her and would love to take my design and project it on her wall so she and her husband can see why I wanted Lan Chi’s Vietnamese restaurantto paint it. That Sunday morning I was very excited as I knew once they saw this design blown up in there 11 foot tall by 14 foot wide wall they were going to go crazy, and in a good way. So that morning I projected it on the wall and stated why I wanted to paint it. I believe Lam felt my excitement and fed off my energy. He said what any artist wants their client to say. “If you are excited to paint this then i want you to paint it because your enthusiasm will be with in the painting and give us great finished product”. BINGO Back to the studio I went and with 6 days I needed to finish this large painting on canvas in my studio so it can be hung at the restaurant the day before the opening!
The finish piece I feel adds something to the restaurant that any central wall should, interest. Using a variety of elements I made sure that I used stone, sky and earth colors in my mural. With the majority of the mural being stone I was able to ensure the pop of color coming from the yellow in the Cambodian statues and the red from the temple in the background which is the The Temple of Literature, Van Mieu. The end product was well received and everyone was happy, which in turn made me very happy!
