Tech Taqueria Columns - a stencil project
These columns are in a new building in Seattle’s South Lake Union area, for a taqueria within a tech company complex. An earlier blog post briefly discussed the digital design I made for them, intended for printing on vinyl for a wall paper-like installation. But the symmetry and varying widths of the columns were deemed too difficult to install as intended. This was something that I had seen coming, so I was already prepared to offer a hand painted solution. This also allowed the design to be tweaked with each variation of the individual columns. This post shows a bit of the process. Overall interior design by Mesher Shing McNutt.
A column seen in the corner with the complementary wall color and furnishings. The super-bold glyphs are just my made up abstractions but ended up reading as a totemic mash-up of ancient symbols, cattle brands, and stone carved pictographs, inviting the viewer to make their own sense of them.
Two samples painted on masonite panels in the studio to study the final coloration and scale of the glyphs. In these samples the glyphs were painted without benefit of stencils, which came later.
A shot showing the columns in process with one piece of stencil paper taped in place at the top. The background colors were brush applied in transparent layers using fluid acrylics and a slow drying medium. The stencils were designed to be reusable and were easier to handle by doing them as three stacked pieces. After the stencil was painted and removed, the many bridge voids were filled in by hand brushing. By the end of the entire project, the stencils were entirely warped and had become difficult to use.
Another column view in the ‘almost’ completed space. The glyphs seem to have achieved their purpose as people passing through as I worked kept asking me what they said, as if they were in a foreign language and as if I could read it. My answer was always, ‘Taco Tuesdays’.