Murals at Bueno Y Sano, Burlington, VT

I’m a little smitten with Burlington, Vermont!

It’s a hip little college town nestled at the edge of Lake Champlain, just a stone’s throw from the birthplace of hockey (Montréal). It sports the usual array of funky shops, cafés, restaurants and clubs; but with a decidedly international flavor. And it has a feature I wish every small town had: a central street—Church Street—that is blocked off to automobile traffic, sending a positive message that people matter, by providing them with a generous space in which to meet, eat, amble and mingle.

Good And Healthy

And now, Burlington is home to a restaurant called Bueno Y Sano (Good And Healthy), that I am honored to have been asked to decorate with murals. More than a decade ago, I painted the murals at Bueno’s flagship Amherst, Massachusetts location; more recently I added visual flavor to the Northampton, MA store. So it seemed fitting that I would be asked to provide similar ambiance for the Vermont location. (One wonders, “where next?”)

The project had a pretty short time line as far as art creation is concerned. I first visited the site on August 7th to meet my customer, scope out the space, take measurements, etc. And I just delivered the finished goods yesterday! The finished goods consist of five paintings on panels, and one mural that I painted on a section of wall on-site. In the traditional sense, the word mural implies a painting that is made directly on a wall. I tend to think of my paintings on panels as murals if they are designed with a specific site in mind—especially a site where the paintings are going to stay put for some length of time.

Note to self: don’t try to shoe-horn an artist

In the interest of finishing the job on time, and to add some visual/stylistic variety, I hired my good friend, the amazingly talented artist Briana Taylor to collaborate on the Church Street Scene painting. I set up the composition and blocked in the general color areas/temperatures, but Briana took it from there, and really made it her own. So much so that I encouraged her to sign her name to that piece (which she did). I really enjoyed this part of the process: in the beginning I put on my art director hat, explaining my vision for the project, and the bright color palettes and glazing techniques that I thought would best achieve the project’s goals.

Briana was a good sport: there was a brief period during which she tried to adhere to a particular glazing technique that I had in mind (glazing is one of several different methods of developing imagery in painting—more on that in a future post). But as it happens, this is sort of like trying to make a right-handed person become left-handed. It can probably be done, but time was of the essence, and I wanted this to be fun for her too, so I made the judgment call. “You know what?” I said. “Paint like Briana.” And she did. And that is exactly what the Church Street Scene needed!

Signed, sealed, and delivered

The paintings are in, and my customer Will seems as happy as he can be (though still a bit stressed at the amount of work he still has to do before the store can open). Soon the good people of Burlington (and their visitors) will be dining in style on fresh, healthy, affordable food, surrounded by the love that, if I’ve done my job, is imbued into the painted surfaces throughout the room!

Go there!

Bueno Y Sano
213 College Street
Burlington, VT 05401

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Posted on Sunday, September 16th, 2007 . Responses are currently closed.