Moab, UT
Greetings from Moab in Utah! We sweated through a very hot week painting our mural in the desert with some special guests, Pine and Palm Journal.
Our plans for our Salt Lake City mural got pushed back. As a result, we went back to our original idea of painting in Moab since we had all the paint and supplies ready to go. Driving into Moab for the second time, we knew what we were in for. A small, fun town sandwiched between prime national and state parks of Utah. The location was perfect for us since we love the outdoors and Moab was just the right kind of town for our lifestyle.
Earlier in the year, we were parked in New Orleans when we spotted a Moab Cyclery van. We met the driver, Kenny, told him about our project and how we wanted to paint one in Utah. He ran around town helping us scout several locations and eventually passed along contacts at Moab Arts & Rec. Together, we found the perfect wall that stands out right when you enter town. Tyson, the 2nd generation owner of Bowen Motel, gave us permission to paint on his building and graciously put us up for a week with much-needed air conditioning.
The owner of the hotel was nice enough to remove some lighting structures so that our mural could sit more balanced in the middle of the wall. We’ve had other property owners who loved our postcard murals so much that they went back to install lighting to keep it visible at night. Hopefully, the same thing will happen in the future here. In this area, the sun is extremely powerful and painting in the sun versus the shade has such a dramatic change in temperature. Obviously, we opted to take breaks during the times the sun was hitting the wall directly as it created pretty unbearable conditions to work in.
Our Greetings from Moab mural was inspired by the colors of the sandstone, natural elements from the parks and the outdoor recreation that people travel from all over the world for. Victor pushed himself on the details of each letter, painted all with spray paint.
Delicate Arch, Hells Revenge (an iconic 4x4 trail), Dead Horse Point, Canyonlands, and Wall Street (a climbing spot next to the Colorado River) are all landmark locations close to Moab. The average temperature was 103 degrees. Luckily the sun arched above the motel all day, giving us the perfect amount of shade on the wall.
The Moab mural project was a great fit for us since one of our goals is to paint closer to National Parks and incorporate them into our murals. We want to raise awareness of the outdoors and protecting our precious environment. The travels from coast-to-coast on our journey really made us aware of how beautiful our own country was. Before doing too much international travel, there’s so much to see & appreciate here in our own country.
We were able to park Honeybear near the wall, but she was like an oven inside and there’s no way we would have survived staying in her unless we had a hook up to electric for air conditioning. This was the first mural that we painted where we could literally see red rock formations from the wall. It was very inspiring to say the least.
Our special guests, Pine and Palm Journal braved the heat and came in from Los Angeles. They joined us for 4 days, shooting behind the scenes video of this mural and to tell the story of Greetings Tour. They make incredible work and we’re stoked to see what they make! While they were here, we got to do a morning hike to Delicate Arch, swim in Kens Lake, checked out Wall Street and a few other parks in the area.
Thank you to Tyson, Liz, Kenny and all the people that stopped by to learn about our project. An extra special thank you to True and Anthony of Pine and Palm Journal for joining us. We’ll see you out there on the road!
Check out some clips from the Moab mural in our friend’s video below for our sponsor Montana Cans.
Press:
Times-Independent – Mural, Mural on the wall
Letter Guide:
M — Delicate Arch (Arches National Park)
O — Hell’s Revenge 4x4 Trail / La Sal Mountains
A — Dead Horse Point State Park / Mountain Biker
B — Wall Street Climber/ Colorado River Rafters
Year: 2019
Mural Size: 12'H x 22'W
Location: 169 N Main St, Moab, UT 84532