We all know that famous beaver painting downtown tagged by Tim Hon of Illuminaries a few years ago. Well when he was offered the job he was considering two possible spaces, the ac shop near green street and the wall on the edge of Cases on Bush street. He asked me to to look into the legality of both because he didn’t want to go through the trouble if it would just have to be painted over.
It turns out that the wall on Bush street is actually in unincorporated Martinez, just over the city limit line, so that meant it needed no city approval. BUT it needed county approval. And when I checked with the county we were told the area of proposed work would require a permit at the neat price of 25oo dollars. Apparently the area is zoned for color coordination and in order to not match the colors you have to pay a fine.
Given that Tim and the owner didn’t have an extra 2500 laying around he chose not to paint there. And we all know and love where he did paint anyway so that worked out fine. Apparently the owner still wanted a beaver mural and didn’t care too much about following rules. Because this suddenly showed up yesterday.
As you can see it is a beaver in a space helmet and signed by the unknown-to-me artist Sue Movs, It’s a fun image and make an unnoticed space very memorable. We never talked and I knew nothing about it. Of course if we had talked I would have given her many fine photos so that her finished painting looked a bit less like an OTTER, but you know what they say about beggars and choosers. And sure, otters in space, why not?
I have tried without success to find out more about the artist. I will let you know i I learn anything. One of thing I BEGGED Tim to do accurately was beaver teeth, and I promised he would be famous being the only muralists that gets them right. Bottoms show and top does not.
You can see that worked.
