Unlikely muralist creates works of art on fences

A A

Allen Russell never trained as an artists but the murals he's created on the fences around his yard are true works of art.

If someone showed these colorful, detailed exterior murals to Allen Russell and told him that the artist is a novice who never tried to do art before, "I'd think they were lying," he said.

But Russell is the artist, and he insists he first picked up the paint on June 28 of this year.

"I'm 47 years old, and this is totally new to me," Russell said. "I have no art training. I suck at using a brush. I can't even draw well. But I know how to use a spray can!"

He added that his wife, Kimberly, who teaches English as a second language courses at Clark College, and his daughter Dramma, a ninth-grader at Vancouver School of Arts and Academics, "can both attest" to his lack of background as an artist.

"It's like discovering you can play the piano, and you'd just never tried," he said.

Why did he? Because of life and death.

Russell is a multi-instrumentalist who hasn't been able to make a living at music, he said, and he's a newly trained piano tuner who's trying to drum up some business. Meanwhile, a friend from California has made a killing as a muralist, he said. He's also a Gulf War-era military veteran who didn't see combat but emerged with post-traumatic stress disorder nonetheless, he said.

"Painting calms restlessness brought on by military service," he wrote in an email.

Read the original:
Unlikely muralist creates works of art on fences