Louisville, KY

October 18, 2018 Greetings Tour

Greetings from Louisville. We painted the official welcome to Louisville sign right across the street from the world-famous Churchill Downs. It’s one of the most iconic and well known venues of the state hosting the Kentucky Derby. However, the immediate surrounding neighborhood did not often get the funding and love it deserves. Local property owners John and Mary Kay Dixon (along with their bulldog Rocco) reached out to us with a goal to brighten up the neighborhood by adding a piece of public art for this specific community.

We arrived in Louisville on an unseasonably hot and humid October day. We hung out with locals around different neighborhoods that fall under the Ohio River and it felt like southern city with culture and hospitality. Louisville (properly pronounced Lulvul) has an Austin, TX vibe before the traffic and bachelorette parties. It’s a great place where the local coffee shops and family owned delis are more popular than Starbucks. We loved the local pride and wanted to make sure it showed in our mural design.

We got to traveling around town and Lisa took photos for references of what we would paint inside the letters. The wall that we were painting was rather long, but we wanted to try to keep the lettering within a postcard format. Therefore, we extended the background imagery out but kept the focus of the lettering centered on the wall. It was a similar method to what we did back on the Greetings from Seattle wall back in 2016. John did a lot of prep work for us before we arrived. This included cutting the weeds, priming the wall and even supplying 2 scissor lifts.

After celebrating Victor’s birthday at Porcini (it was delicious), we got back to work on the mural. John and Mary Kay allowed us to conveniently park the RV on their property where we painted. Now, a mural wouldn’t be complete without its first day challenges, would it? The ground where we needed to use the lifts wasn’t perfectly level, so John being a DIY problem solver built us custom ramps on location. We laid out the sketch and began color blocking the background. With the 90 degree heat and 90% humidity, we checked ourselves into hotels at night. It was too unbearable to sleep in the RV in the Southern heat. Later in the week, we met Jennifer who graciously donated her historic AirBnB to us for three nights. We really appreciated this and it helped re-energize us as we relaxed in air conditioning with her two cats.

Staying true to our collaborative efforts with the community, we invited Louisville/Cincinnati based artist collective Often Seen Rarely Spoken to come help paint the wall art. Victor’s mural agency worked with OSRS in the past, but we were so excited to finally meet up with them in person! They were the ones who connected us to all good things in Louisville. The completion of this mural would not have been the same without the four of them and their insight into the community.

We were contacted by a production team at Discovery/Trvl Channel to do a feature on the Greetings Tour project. We invited them down to film during this mural. Thanks again to OSRS for allowing us to use their studio for the interview segment of the video. You can watch it down below if you scroll down to the bottom of the post. Usually, we work with just one local artist but having an entire collective assisting certainly sped up the progress of the Louisville mural.

Lisa’s mom made a guest appearance, and we had some quality time to hang out with her during and after the mural. Living on the road, it’s a challenge spending time with family. As a result, we cherish any chance that we have that opportunity! Being mobile full time means that we don’t usually have to plan that far out in advance. It also means we can easily accommodate changes of plans we well since we don’t have to deal with hotels and accommodations. This is one of our favorite parts of the RV life.

This was the first mural that we painted back in the contiguous states since we got engaged in Alaska. It was quite the road trip from as far north as Fairbanks to Louisville! It’s wonderful to be able to experience so many cultures across this beautiful country, and we wouldn’t trade this experience for the world.

On our final day in Louisville, we met up with John and Mary Kay one last time in front of the mural. These two had the original idea to make this area a better place and we’re honored they asked us to do so! Being at the wall every day, we really got to know the people that make up this neighborhood. Bar owner Lou across the street and his regular customers, the filling station attendants at Speedway, next door neighbor Larry whose dog that had three chihuahua puppies while we were there. Every mural has a story, but Louisville had many. Thank you to those who stopped by to give us water, Lisa’s mom for flying into town, and especially John and Mary Kay who kept this mural alive after most donors pulled out their funding! We hope to see you all real soon.