MWA Votes to Support Mural Application Process

Mount Washington Association members voted Monday night to offer interim support to artists Zack Christensen and Rob Sipchen to create a memorial mural, pending a presentation of the mural's final images.

A motion was made to “support the process moving forward in principle pending appropriate review” and passed 14 to 8, with four abstentions.

Monday's presentation by Christensen and Sipchen is part of their series of community meetings in Mount Washington, which they have conducted with artist partner Antonio Villaraigosa, Jr.

The three young men are trying to gain neighborhood support for a public mural to memorialize their late friend , who committed suicide in January after a long and difficult struggle with schizophrenia.

On Monday evening, Christensen and Sipchen spoke about the project and presented representative samples of their art to members of the Mount Washington Association in the Jack and Denny Smith building at .

Before they began, Jack’s father Keith--with mother, Connie in attendance--made his first public statement about the mural proposed in their son’s memory.

After the Rohmans left, Christensen and Sipchen told the assembled crowd that the large drawings displayed on the stage--including a buffalo and a leonine creature--would be used “in multiples” in the mural to “create a sense of forward motion” but said that the art at the meeting was not the final imagery.

Association President Rob Schraff then opened the floor to comments and questions, and a spirited discussion ensued. Many in the crowd expressing a desire to see renderings that were closer to the finished product. 

Eliot Sekuler disagreed, commenting that if acclaimed Mexican muralist David Alfaro Siqueiros had submitted his murals for public approval, they would have “come out looking like Disney renderings.”

Check back later today for Patch's full story on Monday's meeting.

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