Meghan Taylor: Illustration & Graphic Design

Mural Scouting, & Hello from NYC!

First off, please excuse my absence. I’ve been through a tumult of changes, including moving up to New York and enrolling in a graphic design program, starting a full-time job, and developing a rock/ice climbing habit. Murals are still a part of my artsy soul, so I vow to restablish my posting habits. In the future, I’ll likely post about design, oil paints, and other areas i love - widening the net, but hopefully providing interesting artsy fun for anyone out there who happens to be reading this. 

With that, here’s my first Mural Scouting entry in my new New York home. Sunday night a friend and I drove into the city to see some amazing musicians performing Ives and Mozart at the Poisson Rouge on Bleeker Street in downtown. The music was gorgeously arresting, and the drinks fabulous (try The Garfunkel there! Hendriks gin with rosemary, sage, and parlsey, … but strangely no thyme). The happy bonus was stumbling upon two murals on the way over. First, this lively colorful array of bubbly faces and expressions on the corner of Bleeker and Houston.

Then, outside The Red Lion (a place I’ve never been inside, but is just a few doors down from Poisson Rouge) is this mural:

Mural Scouting: New One on H Street

Snapped this mural from a car window as we drove by it on our way from our old Cap Hill row house to meet the landlords at our new Eckington apartment. This mural is on 10th & H NE, and looks like a celebration of H Street’s vibrancy. I’ll have to go back for a closer look though…

Mural Scouting: Duke Ellington’s Legacy

Yesterday I went to see Sophisticated Ladies at Arena Stage on U Street (Lincoln Theater) … U Street is of course the perfect setting for this choreographically brilliant tribute to Duke Ellington. Considering the standing-ovation worthy performance, it seemed the perfect time to snap this mural painted just across the street.

The mural is by G Byron Peck, who runs City Arts. Duke is just one example of his strong public art presence in DC. I find this mural, of course, totally awesome. It relates to its place, to the surrounding community, and to history. It combines graphic styles to provide a visually arresting image… Over the years, it has become an important fixture in DC.

Mural Scouting: Lines of Colorful Figures on H St

Brilliantly colorful abstracted human figures line H Street NE right behind Union Station. Many of these mosaic figures have dedications, posted on plaques on their panel. A great mural close by to public transportation, and a gateway for visitors entering the H St NE corridor – a strip which is flowering with all sorts of new establishments from coffee shops to a bar that offers mini golf.

Mural Scouting: Afro-Columbian Culture on U Street

Muralist Joel Bergner painted a scene soaked in Afro-Columbian culture on DC’s vivaciously eclectic U Street Corridor. I love this mural because it shines light on one culture’s struggle that we in the US can and have easily ignored. A well-rounded work of art, the mural doesn’t focus solely on tragic violence that Afro-Columbians face. It also shows a beautiful culture: with dancing, rivers, villages, foliage, celebration and music. The mural is a stunning depiction of everything beautiful along with heartbreak and tragedy.

There is some wonderful video footage of the inauguration ceremony of the mural, including the words of one Afro-Columbian human rights advocate who had to flee his Columbian village due to the violence there. I appreciated this mural even more after seeing this.

Lots more about the artist Joel Bergner and the amazing projects that he is involved in at actionashe.blogspot.com.

Mural Scouting: DC’s Street Art Sweet Spot

A series of stunning street art murals are painted on the walls outside Irvine Contemporary art gallery. This sweet spot is likely known well by fans of Shepard Fairey (of the amazing Obama art fame), as his intricate and absolutely gorgeous work is fanned along the wall. Fairey’s art is complemented by an eclectic mix of other intriguing styles by artists Pisa73, EVOL (who did a super interesting skyscraper type scene with astounding detail), Gaia, and Oliver Vernon.

I just went to visit the murals and took a couple of shots… See the whole set at my Flickr site. Irvine also offers a slideshow of the artists creating their murals here.

Mural Scouting: George on the Bike Path

At least three days a week, I bicycle past a massive mural along the Mt Vernon Trail in Virginia. The mural gives cyclists who are spinning by a visual panorama of scenes from the life of George Washington.

Happily, a treasure trove of tromp l’oeil gems are assembled along the northern end of the mural. (for the vocabularily curious, tromp l’oeil means “fool the eye.” Paintings done in this style are highly realistic, with the goal of making the viewer feel it is not a painting, but a real item). I am fascinated with the oversized shiny coins popping out of the faux cherry wood background. There’s also a smattering of stamps featuring Georgie’s likeness, and a 14-foot-long one dollar bill, visible to airborne folks landing at National Airport.

Check it out for yourself: The mural is located in Alexandria, along the Mt Vernon bicycle-pedestrian path. You can see it just after crossing the small “s”-shaped fenced-in bridge as you head toward Alexandria from Washington DC.

Eatonville in DC

A friend and I visited U Street’s visually enticing restaurant Eatonville this past weekend. The classy eatery features tin ceilings, intricate chandeliers, and gorgeously intense murals all over the place. Zora Neal Hurston’s spirit is honored beautifully throughout.

I adore this place. Its worth a visit just for the visual feast, but friendly staff and an astoundingly awesome collection of bourbon made it that much better. Check it out.

Mural Scouting: Sperryville, VA

Some friends and I spent a night camping in Shenandoah National Park this past weekend. Saturday was full of hiking, eating, camp fires, smores, beers, and general all round nature merriment. Then Sunday morning we woke up to fog and rain. Plans to fry up a pan of migas for breakfast were quickly dashed in favor of stopping at the first eatery on the road back home. Rambling along the beautiful lush farmland of Route 211, we peeked a welcoming sign hanging from a storefront at the Sperryville Junction - one that surely meant “eatery.” One U-turn and a few hundred feet later, we pulled up to this beautiful mural of blooming colorful flowers.




This mural is painted upon the outside of Rae’s restaurant. It only got better when we spied the dumpster… upon which was depicted a banana-detonating monkey.





The outdoor artscapes are just the beginning of Rae’s creative cozy feel. Step inside to awesome green walls, comfy tables with whacky salt & pepper shakers, and shelves full of odd goods for sale - from zombie masks to jars of honey. And the food lived up to all this visual enticement: Everything – absolutely everything – was amazingly delicious. I recommend the Jamaican black bean soup and the homemade four berry pie.

While painting the Akridge Half St Mural last Friday, I ran into Jazirock, who showed me a muralistic sweet spot not 5 blocks away from the milling baseball crowds.







Panels lined the fence at K and 1st SE, with artists were hard at work creating designs. It all comes to a head on July 11 (that’s tomorrow) for a Mural Jam starting at 5 pm. All the artists will be there together finishing up their panels. Seriously awesome work is going on here!