I linked to Cabel’s talk when he originally posted it but today he’s filled in some of the missing details about photographing and recovering the mural. I love this so much.
After learning about “Vision 2020” from a collector — the McDonald’s initiative which, as a I note in the talk, you did watch the talk right?, would require all McDonald’s to remodel by 2020, and remove any trace of Ronald — I really began to sweat about the mural. So, I would occasionally email the franchisee, and see if there was anything I could do to preserve it.
Assuming the chance of saving the mural was slim, a high-resolution photo seemed like the next best saving bet.
And, amazingly, the franchisee agreed to let me do it!
I reached out to photographer Aaron Lee, who does wonderful work and seems always up for adventures, and asked if he could come up and do a multi-photo-stitched giant capture of the mural for permanent safekeeping.
We hit the road.
As a side note, within a couple of Cabel’s photos, I noticed that the McDonald’s had a Greg Olsen print on the wall. It turns out, that’s a painting of my friend’s friend. The pal in question, Geoff, had us over to his friend’s house where I saw the original painting hung over that same piano. It’s a very nice painting, and their house is filled with beautiful paintings, most of which (if not all) are by Utah artists.
This painting is called “Dress Rehearsal”. She and her sister posed at the piano where the painting would eventually end up. I love the self referential nature of the artwork — if you look closely you can see the painting of the girls (more specifically the piano) in the top right corner of the painting. And that painting has the painting in it too.1 I believe my friend Geoff took a photo of us in that room but I don’t know if I ever saw the print. I should ask him.
- and so on… for eternity?[↩]