Muralist Shawn Bullen’s start with street art was born from his childhood love of drawing and photography.
When he was going into high school, graffiti was in. Bullen’s classmates were out late tagging buildings and other “silly stuff.” It wasn’t long after Bullen started going out late himself that he was arrested for tagging a wall on private property. Bullen bounced back quickly though.
“Luckily, when I was in court, they allowed me to convince them I could clean it off,” he said. “Then, when I was finished cleaning of the graffiti, I ended up convincing the owner to let me paint something on their truck.”
That became Bullen’s first commissioned piece. The owner gave him $200 for painting the logo of their produce company with a few veggies.
“It kind of clicked immediately that I wanted to do it as a legitimate thing and I realized I’d gotten to the level where people would take me seriously enough to pay me to do it,” Bullen said. “It was a much more realistic thing than doing it illegally in the middle of the night. So now I do it legally in the middle of the night.”
Bullen worked with Hugo Medina to paint a mural on the wall of First Studio, located at 631 N. First Ave. Bullen, who currently lives in San Francisco, was commissioned by American Express for this mural as part of a campaign for Small Business Saturday on Nov. 28. The new mural joins an older one, which highlights the iconic characters featured on the historic “The Wallace and Ladmo Show,” which was filmed and broadcasted from First Studio during its 35-year run.
“They do a mural in almost every major city in America right now, every year in November to highlight local businesses and to bring attention to supporting local business,” Bullen said.
The mural is composed of three figures. One is of a young Steven Spielberg, painted by Medina. The other two are from Bullen. The first is a portrait of the daughter of the owner of First Studio, a sunset reflected in her glasses, who Bullen said represents the younger generation. The second is a man known to Bullen as the Navajo Man, who Bullen said represents local history and is an attempt to honor the past.
Contact the reporter at Nathaniel.Thrash@asu.edu.
