Mud Mural at Colorado State University Pueblo, with Kiko Denzer

Getting mud to stick on the wall

Maya Aviña teaches fine arts at CSU in Pueblo, Colorado. For about the past ten years, she’s been immersed in natural building, which she has also made into the focus of her research at the college. Last year, she invited me to come be an “artist in residence” and do a mural project. The challenge was to bring life into dead space: a bleak, harsh, hard-edged, institutional (college) courtyard of grey and yellow concrete pressed down by massive, overhanging soffit walls of more cast concrete. It looked (and felt) like a pen in a zoo designed so the animals below couldn’t hide from viewers on the high, overhanging walls. In two days, however, a group of about a dozen of us made designs, mixed up a bunch of mud, and transformed the space. Below is my account, with photos, magazine format. And here’s a link to Maya’s website, which has more photos, particular details of the process, and a video.