Alina Shirley (Art and Stories)

Lucy Maddox is a former visual arts RMIT student who has become a full-time successful artist. She is most famous for painting hands. Upon asking her why she liked them, she told me she loved the technical challenge of painting hands and enjoyed them as a subject matter. Also, her work often shows how hands can symbolise communication and creativity. RMIT commissioned her to do a mural on the city campus, and she needed volunteers from the art school to help her. I was thrilled to know I had been chosen to work with Lucy, and a team of my fellow students. I was particularly thrilled to work the Simone Vittorio, a fellow RMIT student and friend, who showed with me in our group show, “Journeys Through life and Death.” It was an honour to work with Lucy and have the chance to learn from her, and to collaborate with my fellow students, like Simone. Our teacher, Robi Smith, was also wonderfully supportive and helped us on the mural as best she could.

The mural was 14 meters long and about 3.4 meters high (at its highest point). It started with a long blue roller background undercoating the wall. This was the fun and easy part. Then the plan was to work from the top down, so the scaffolding went up first. Lucy had a solid plan on the overall composition of the wall, theme, and colours. The plan was to make hands working on creative projects, like writing, measuring, and painting etc. This was because the mural was in a technical and creative part of RMIT. First, we worked on the blue squiggles in the background on the scaffolding. We were all given safety instructions on how to work at heights and relevant personal protection (PPE) gear. It was an interesting experience to work on scaffolding. Lots of preparation was needed to make sure everything was easy to reach, and cleaning up paint was quite challenging without going up and down ladders a lot. The team worked with about 4 artists total at a time, including 3 or 2 students, and Lucy. Generally, each artist worked on one part of the wall at a time. Painting a mural is a unique experience because the work is highly affected by the weather. It is unsafe to work on scaffolding in the rain, and Melbourne continuously has rainy patches and drizzles. The weather is highly unpredictable, meaning we were often under the pressure of a weather clock. Lucy chalked up the squiggles and the basic plan. Then I would lay down the squiggles quickly to beat the weather, and more detailed students in our team would come with an edging brush and tighten the edge lines. Another reason this was a good strategy was because there were initially only a few edge brushes. Lucy then bought more edge brushes, so we could all edge at once. Initially, we lost a lot of time edging all the lines perfectly considering weather interruptions. Teamwork using this strategy helped us be more efficient with the weather. The drawback was it did mean we spent more time cleaning up and needed more easy access to the background colour for touch ups. A key takeaway was, when working on a large-scale mural, save details for the final layers, because it takes a long time to paint in mass.

Alina at work on the mural (Photo by Simone Vittorio)

After the blue squiggles, we worked on blocking in the hands and the tools. To do this we burned through an insane amount of masking tape. We found masking tape stuck better to the wall than the traditional painter’s tape. We blocked in the hands with brushes and taped edges. We found we needed many coats of paint because the paints were very thin. Lucy used a special Eco paint that was environmentally friendly. Once the hands were done and cleaned up, the form of the hands in black dots were next. This was done with a stencil Lucy made from carboard, and then spray painted on. Painting them on with a brush was tried, but did not work well. After a week’s extension, due to weather, the scaffolding was able to come down. Now we worked on the bottom half of the mural. This time we had to contend with plants, so boards were put down in the garden, so we could stand by the wall.

Last piece of tape to be removed from the wall before finishing the mural

One deeply satisfying thing about working with a mural of such large size was standing back and seeing the progress. Being up-close painting the mural all an artist can see is mistakes and things they need to fix, but far away the “why” and the bigger picture becomes far more evident. Our team took happiness in the fact we were working collaboratively towards something bigger. I learned sometimes seeing the bigger picture, and not the annoying small details, can help me see why what I do matters. Those little details don’t seem as big in the grand scheme of the overall mural.

Scaffolding down. Overall progress picture.

The bottom half worked very similar to the top, and it was quicker because we knew what to do. Unfortunately, during this time less of the other students were available, so it was down to me, Lucy and whichever student that was free. I worked on the mural solidly for about 2 full days up till it’s finishing. Suddenly, I had a newfound respect for just how hard Lucy must be working given she was at the mural every day, painting, chalking, and preparing things for us. Then she would go home and work on art for her upcoming show in Tasmania. We had to finish the mural before she left for the show. The most exciting part of the bottom half was getting to do the stencil black dots. Generally, one person would hold the stencil and align the dots while the other person sprayed the paint. I liked spraying the paint, it was fun! Finally, we finished the stencil and any last touch ups and coats of paint. The day I left; the mural was all but complete. Our supervisor, Lucy’s dog Beans signed off on our work. Robi and RMIT staff members were all very happy and impressed.

Finally, we had a small opening with an ice cream truck (that included vegan flavours) where we all signed the wall. You can find our mural in RMIT city campus at O’Grady Place. The finished mural is beautiful colourful hands at creative work. I find this quite fitting because it took many hands to make the mural. It was very fun and exciting to be working and collaborating with other artists. I found the teamwork one of the most exciting and rewarding parts of making the mural. So, I say a big thanks to Lucy, RMIT, and all the students in our team for this great opportunity and learning experience.

There are five lessons I can take with me into my art practice, and recommend to anyone working on a mural or large-scale creative project:

1) Save the details of perfection for the end, lay foundations first,

2) On a big project work as a team, divide and conquer,

3) Don’t lose sight of the bigger picture,

4) Appreciate your hard work and others too and,

5) Have fun with your team and celebrate the wins.