Concept
The previous year, my father had been diagnosed with cancer. While he had a quick and successful recovery, I wanted to make this as a gift to him.
When I was a kid my dad had set up an impromptu indoor camping trip for us. He told me various stories about his family and growing up. He said he was afraid of the trees as a boy because there was a filipino fable about giants living among the branches. These giants smoked cigars and their embers became the fireflies in the forest. He and his friends would dare each other to go near these trees. The mural was an encapsulation of that memory.
Painting my first mural
I ended up getting a wall that was talled than I expected, so I had to extend it on the fly. I also had to become comfortable with a scissor lift.
Michael Che, the organizer of the show, made a facebook live feed as he helped me use rollers to paint the background. Even though I wondered why any viewer would literally watch paint dry, I had a blast painting this and was really pleased with the results. Thankfully, my dad liked it too.
