Local artist Tyler Kauffman transformed the blank canvas that was our retaining wall into a piece of art that champions local and celebrates the Friendly City. The mural can be found at Nest Realty’s newest Shenandoah Valley location, 129 West Wolfe Street in Harrisonburg, Virginia. We sat down with Tyler to get some insight into his creative process.
Nest Realty: For the mural project, what are the five things you couldn’t live without?
Tyler Kauffman: For this particular mural: spray paint, masking tape (for those really crisp lines), a tape measure, my phone (which has my design, to scale), and my headphones (music allows me to get into a relaxed but productive art making groove 🙂 ).
NR: What other street art/mural projects have you done, and where?
TK: I completed one other large scale mural for a business in Sarasota, Florida, in 2018. That mural was approximately 10′ x 33′, and used many of the same methods as were used on the Nest mural.
NR: How did you arrive at this concept?
TK: Nest approached me about creating a mural that embodied or was a celebration of one or more aspects of Harrisonburg. To me, this was not an easy concept to summarize and then depict in a piece of artwork. The beauty of Harrisonburg may be different to each person. So my initial approach to this project was to think about what I personally love about this area. I came up with three main themes: “the perfect balance of rural and urban,” “diversity of its people,” and “the beauty of the surrounding scenery.” I then designed three initial digital concepts using my iPad, incorporating these three themes. Nest chose one concept and gave feedback that allowed me to then go into several more rounds of design until we reached the final.
NR: Are there any aspects of this project that challenged or surprised you?
TK: It’s perhaps a bit of a simple challenge, but the ribbed texture of the wall gave me the most trouble, consistently. I was fully aware of the texture, going into the mural, but it still found a way to test my patience. Typically, to get nice sharp lines, I will use masking tape and either brush the paint on or spray it. Due to the in-and-out texture of the wall, I learned within the first hour that I would be using spray paint for everything. It took me longer to learn that if I was to be successful and get those nice sharp lines, I had to tediously press the tape into every valley and texture on the wall, or live with the bit of overspray that would escape the masking tape. It’s not necessarily my idea of a really good time, but the end result is worth it. It’s sort of like unwrapping a present every time, to see what you get. And I suppose if patience is a virtue, after this mural, I must be very virtuous.
NR: Talk about one of the themes of this piece! Any theme, and what you captured.
TK: The biker is the main focus of the mural, and that is not accidental. Most of the design was focused on how the biker was interacting with the rest of the image, because it is representative of many things. The biker is an obvious representation of transportation, but also recreation and exercise, or health. But in this mural it’s also used to show a transition from the country to the city, and is meant to represent a somewhat harmonious melding of those two worlds. Because of the composition and how I framed the biker in his or her surroundings, he or she is clearly going somewhere. And the gender, race, and age of the person on the bike were purposefully left ambiguous, so that any person could better identify with the image.
It is with grateful hearts that we at Nest Realty share this incredible representation of Harrisonburg with our community. There’s no place like West Wolfe Street!
To learn more about Tyler and his art, visit his website and Instagram.Â