Camer1's bird

On Monday afternoon eMbers hosted a mural completion celebration. As the event was about to begin, a storm with heavy rain hit Rensselaer, and because I waited for it to stop before I left home, I arrived when the speeches were in progress. Cameron Moberg, the artist, thanked the community for its hospitality and said that as a kid he wanted to be a bird when he grew up. Birds for him represent freedom.

The rain stopped and everyone went outside for the ribbon cutting. I noticed that more feathers had been added to the back of the mural.

The event attracted several people from out of town, including a representative from the Indiana Arts Commission, the Tippecanoe Arts Federation, and the Lafayette Journal and Courier.  Then the line up for the ribbon cutting was organized. You can see the storm clouds on the right of the picture.

If you look closely at the feathers, you can see one decorated with corn and one very short one above it decorated with wind turbines (with four blades, not three). Some of the other motifs had meaning to Cameron. I asked our local bird expert what kind of bird it was and she said it most closely resembles an osprey but it could be whatever you wanted it to be. I said I wanted it to be a hummingbird but she said it could not be that.

Cameron signed the work with his url.

I was amazed at how sharp his lines were and I asked him how he did that. He said it was all in the technique. A graffiti artist must learn to control angle, distance, and pressure and it takes practice to do that consistently. It may also help to use spray paint especially manufactured for artists.

On the way home I rode past the construction site of the high water treatment plant and saw that the heavy rain had filled one of the pits. It seems that some storm sewer line already empties there.

The storm dumped almost an inch of water on us.