Mario Alfaro-June 5 to June 20
Reception June 8th, 6-9pm
mARTinez Gallery
630 Court Street
Martinez, CA
Whatcha doing tonight? Movie? Date night? Graduation party? Whatever it is, see if you can chisel out some time to stop by the mARTinez Gallery and shake the hand of the man who boldly painted this…
And then this….
And then THIS
Just in case you’re new to this story, Mario painted the mural on Main St, and folks would stop by and ask ‘where was the beaver?’ so he added one, based on Cheryl’s photo from this website. Then the big subterranean civic muscle flexed and Mario was ordered to paint over the mural. He was very upset and also painted over his name. Director of Public works Dave Scola was good enough to speak to the media, but he obviously was just the mouthpiece for those much more powerful – (I imagine someone who owns a block of sheetpile that reaches higher than anywhere in the city). (Maybe someone with a particular resentment for all things castor.) After the chronicle ran with the story the city realized they better smooth things over with the artist, and Mario eventually signed his name again: this time with a very small beaver tail attached to the “O”.
Mario ‘s work will be on display for the month of June, and no one should miss this opportunity to buy this man a beer and thank him for trying to listen to the will of the people and putting Martinez in the news in Florida, Milwakee and Chicago. And by the way if you never listened to this, you really, really should. Come to think of it, even if you did listen to it you should probably do so again, because everyone deserves to laugh this hard.
Sadly, I can’t be there tonight, but go for me, okay? Tell Mario that Beaver people thank him for his effort and remember what a difference he made.Tell him we smile every time we walk past the main street bridge because we know that beaver is hidden under there.
This morning’s image surprised me. When I got it home and on the big screen I realized this beaver is Dad. Look at his very bumpy head, and different colorations. He was going back and forth across the creek up from the footbridge, emerging and returning to what we believe is a new bankhole under the cottonwood tree there. Reed still seems to be in the hole right by the footbridge, but I’ve never seen Dad down this far before. Hmm…
