Pasadena / Altadena, CA
Pasadena & Altadena, CA vintage travel decal inspired mural painted by the Greetings Tour, Victor Ving & Lisa Beggs.
We now have a place to call home base after 5 years on the road full time! We chose Pasadena in sunny So-Cal as the location to plant our roots. Finally, we are considered “local artists” somewhere and look forward to contributing to our new community. The pandemic forced us to take some time off traveling and it’s been refreshing to stay put in one place and focus on our mission. Don’t worry, we’re still going to hit the road this Spring (2021) to continue our mural tour!
During our home search earlier in the year, we found a small coffee shop called Highlight Coffee. It was located on the border of Pasadena and Altadena with beautiful views of the San Gabriel Mountains. We reached out to the owner (Frank Kim) about doing a mural on the side of the shop and he was totally open to the idea.
For a while, we’ve had an idea for a variation on the large letter postcard style. The new concept is based on the vintage travel decals from the same era. Travelers would collect and put these bright neon stickers on their suitcases. Some still do! It’s the perfect solution for some walls that don’t fit the traditional large letter postcards we are known for. Our idea was to paint two separate decals for Pasadena and Altadena since the coffee shop had customers from both cities. Hopefully, over time we can add some more vintage inspired labels in the background and make it a discoverable mural collage.
Since this was our first mural in the city that we now call “home” we wanted to spend some extra time painting it. It was such a nice feeling to be able to work on it on and off not be rushing to hit a tight timeline to make it to the next city. Although, we technically still had our home on wheels with us at all times in the past.
We also tried out a traditional pouncing process used by sign painters for this mural instead of using a projector on site. Since we now have a home studio, we were able to use an electropounce machine to burn patterns and prep designs before arriving at the wall. Our goal is to always evolve our creative process and be more efficient with our time. This new tool will come in handy for a bunch of back to back projects this upcoming Spring.
We love to meet locals during the painting of our murals. However, we had more of a special connection this time as we made conversation with locals stopping by to get their coffees. Within the time span of a few days, we made a lot of great neighborhood connections and really look forward to helping grow this new community of ours.
Perry’s Joint is a popular restaurant next door to the coffee shop and we accidentally parked in the owner’s parking spot the first day of painting! Perry introduced himself to us and was extremely nice and grateful for our visual addition to his everyday routine. We could immediately tell he was a genuine individual with a passion to help others. It was no surprise that we quickly learned about his involvement in spearheading the businesses in the immediate area as well as helping out at the high school down the block.
For those wondering about the bear in the Altadena image, there’s always residential bear sightings in the area since it’s a city located at the foothills. The owner of Highlight really wanted to incorporate this into the piece so we agreed! We’ve already seen so many animals around the neighborhood like coyotes, peacocks, green parrots…you name it.
We want to continue to explore different travel related mural styles to push our creative boundaries. It’s a refreshing challenge to create concepts that still pay homage to the nostalgia of travel. One of our ideas is to continue to add a collage of historic decals behind these pieces that tie into the neighborhood including Route 66, Tournament of Roses, John Muir HS, Mt. Lowe Railway, etc. A fun fact is that Jackie Robinson actually attended high school down the block from this mural at John Muir! Hopefully, this wall can become an evolving art piece that we keep adding onto over time.
“Victor and Lisa of Greeting’s Tour were awesome to work with. Their vision and execution was extremely clear and professional. We really appreciate all the work to help highlight local communities! Thank you!”
Year: 2021
Mural (Wall) Size: 12'H x 20'W
Location: 2071 Lincoln Ave, Pasadena, CA 91103