"In a New Light" - University of Northern Colorado
University of Northern Colorado's Crabbe Hall was built in 1919 as a donation from the Guggenheim Family. Crabb Hall is mainly a freshman academic classroom building for UNC's fine art program, so almost all incoming student will pass through the building at me point in their freshman year. The building is beautiful, with marbled floors, arched ceilings, pillars and original oak trim. But after 98 years of the same look, the school college thought it might be nice to add some color to the palette.
In Spring of 2017, UNC's gallery Director, Pam Campanaro, reached out and asked us about a possible mural collaboration with longtime friend, snowboarder and artist, Pat Milbery. Pat lives in the Denver area and through his company, So-Gnar, he has created hundreds of murals throughout Colorado and the U.S. We spent months working on design concepts for a 20' wing of the Hall near the entrance. In August of 2017 we spent 2 weeks brining our designs to life almost exclusively using aerosol, thanks to Kobra paint. Because of the existing architecture, we decided to use lots of shapes and forms in our design and bright colors to make the Hall more lively. After 80 cans of paint and countless hours of work, we revealed our finished piece with an open reception during the first week of classes. It was great to see so many students and faculty take pride in the new hallway and feel inspired to be in the space. We received write-ups in several regional and Denver-based publications for the mural and hope to continue work on it in the future. This was an amazing opportunity and a lot of fun collaborating with a friend thousands of miles away.