Wheatpasting Demo at Franklin Art Works

We were recently invited to lead a hands-on wheatpasting demonstration and install our own wheatpasted mural at Franklin Art Works in the Phillips neighborhood of Midtown Minneapolis. If you've never been over there, we strongly recommend it. At one time an enormous movie theater, the building has been fully renovated and converted into a contemporary art exhibition space, but the original 1916 theater screen and all of its Art Nouveau ornament still remain hidden in the back of the building. Anyways, Wes and I decided we would use bits and pieces of our test prints and other found paper to create a large portrait of Wendell Phillips, an abolitionist, fighter for the people, and the namesake of the neighborhood.

With the help of our awesome intern Sarah, we laid out some tiled background squares, pasting them up to the wall using brushes and wallpaper paste.

Earlier back at our studio, we had drawn a pencil outline of the entire portrait onto the background tiles, so once all the pieces were in place, we began filling in spaces with ripped up chunks of test prints to match the dark and light areas of Phillips' face.

Now it's starting to look like someone...

The finished product - our dedication to the Phillips neighborhood: (click image for larger view)