Fantastic Landscape #2 – Page & Masonic St (2015)

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MIKE REGER:

“I originally painted a mural on these walls in the late 90’s as part of my community service credits in high school. I don’t think I’d ever painted something on that scale before, and it ended up taking me long into the summer after I graduated. I remember, because the new guy at the auditorium/gym thing down the street called the cops on me for graffiti. I remember holding up a teeny-tiny paint brush to the cop and having him say: ‘As long as it’s on your scout’s honor you’re not a vandal.’ It didn’t help that some random street kids had posted up next to me and were taking bong rips a minute before. That kind of thing happens a lot when you paint murals, even on the side of an elementary school.

So about 15 years passed, and one side of that wall was completely destroyed so they started just buffing it black, and the other was falling into disrepair. My friend was harassing me to go back and fix it, so finally we collectively reached out to the school through CAMP and made a deal with them to repaint it in the same style/theme as before as part of CAMP’s Off-Site program.