Los Feliz, CA
Greetings from Los Feliz in Los Angeles, CA. This was a fun last minute project as part of the inaugural Los Feliz Art & Music Block Party + Mural Festival. We were invited by our talented friend Ryan 'Yanoe' Safarti, who curated the mural artists, including Shepard Fairey, Nychos, Eric "Zoueh" Skotnes, and others. It was an honor to be included alongside some of these big name artists. We rarely take on mural festivals (that's a whole different discussion), but this one was generously supported by the LFIA and didn't involve much travel since it was local. A huge shout out to Celine Vacher, whose passion for her neighborhood and community helped make this all a reality. Our hats off to her for all the hard work she put into organizing this event through her nonprofit, The Local Collective.
The wall before the mural with different paint colors & texture.
Carlos from Mural Colors helping grind down some texture for a smooth install.
We'd been wanting to do a vertically oriented postcard mural for a while, and this was the perfect location and place name for it, since it's two shorter words that stack nicely to fill the space. Going back to the large letter linen postcard era, there have only been a handful of layouts like this: Las Vegas, Idaho, and Fort Knox. Also, after a decade of painting so many place names, this was the first time we got to include the letter Z. With this piece, the full alphabet is finally complete in our series!
The wall is located at a busy intersection at the entrance to the Los Feliz Village neighborhood, at N Vermont and Franklin Ave. The iconic House of Pies diner is right across the street and it’s within walking distance of a lot of popular businesses and landmarks. Thank you to Nela Rd. dispensary and Anarbagh Indian Restaurant for being such great hosts for the mural canvas. Since the wall space wasn't huge, this was the perfect opportunity to spend more time with details off-site on mural cloth. Honestly, it's also just a good excuse not to travel so much and to paint in the comfort of our own backyard studio. I used to be against these adhered outdoor canvases because they didn't feel like a "true" mural, but I've come to appreciate all the benefits. Especially after losing a few recent murals to natural disasters, where the artwork itself could have been salvaged but the buildings had to come down anyway. It also makes city projects on private property much easier to manage if ownership ever changes.
Celine did an amazing job making sure the funders understood this wasn't really a commissioned piece, but one meant to have real artistic freedom. That said, we always make sure community input shapes the murals, since locals know best. The LFIA understood that the imagery should feel timeless, and sent us a list of local landmarks, history, and culture that lined up pretty closely with what we'd already planned. We want our murals to feel just as relevant 50 to 100 years in the past as they will 50 to 100 years in the future. There are always great local businesses we'd love to include, but city ordinances require that we avoid anything that reads as advertising for an existing establishment. Given the size of the piece, we also had to be selective so it didn't feel too cluttered. That said, we hope that we did it justice and there’s always going to be more walls for other murals to focus on anything we missed in our mural.
For the background, we included abstract spotlights to highlight Los Feliz as the gateway to Hollywood. So many creatives in the industry have called this area home over the years and helped build its foundation. The purple and green color palette is pulled from the famous neon sign landmark at the Los Feliz Theatre. We also rendered some of the large letters (the "S" especially) in an Art Deco style to match that golden era aesthetic.
In the "LOS," we featured the Griffith Park Observatory, which is actually visible right as you turn around and look up from the wall. There's a lot more attractions within Griffith Park that we could have included, but the observatory felt like it represented the park well on its own. We did include the Berlin Bear statue, which sits at the Fern Dell entrance, in the "L." It's a Cold War era monument, gifted to the people of Los Angeles by the people of West Berlin, since the two cities are sister cities. A few wild green parrots (Northeast LA's most famous transplants) fly across the sunset in the 'S.' Consider it our little cheeky nod at the 'true locals only' energy every neighborhood seems to have, even the ones built entirely by people who moved there. No hate on either view but I (Victor) experienced that same sentiment quite a lot growing up in NYC as a native New Yorker there too.
The William Mulholland Memorial Fountain appears in the "FE," next to the Shakespeare Bridge in the "L." The Hollyhock House, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and now located in Barnsdall Art Park, is featured across the "IZ," with Steamboat Willie in the foreground. Walt Disney's entire early career and personal life in Los Angeles were deeply rooted in the Los Feliz neighborhood so we had to pay tribute! To avoid any Disney IP issues, we gave a nod to that history using Steamboat Willie, who is now in the public domain.
P-22 keeping an eye on the community at the entrance of the Los Feliz Village business corridor.
My favorite part of the mural actually came about as an afterthought. Debra Matlock, president of the LFIA, had stopped by our Greetings from Altadena mural and loved the addition of Rubio the bear beside it. A tribute to the beloved P-22 mountain lion felt like the perfect fit for the Los Feliz mural. P-22 was Los Angeles' famous "Hollywood Cat," a mountain lion who lived in Griffith Park and roamed the Los Feliz neighborhoods. He was famously captured in a Los Feliz backyard on December 12, 2022. We painted him life size, sitting on the ground beneath the mural. It definitely startled a few people (and dogs) who did a double take walking by.
The mural festival wrapped up with a block party on Hollywood Blvd, which we got to check out. Every artist involved did an amazing job, and the event successfully brought a lot of business into the area. Our son even lent a hand with some final touch ups on the wall. You can check out a map of all the Los Feliz murals here. Thank you to Carlos Rogel at Mural Colors for helping with production, wall prep, and installing the canvas. Thanks to him, we were able to knock it out in just a few hours on site. Last but not least, follow the LFIA as we also created postcards and prints of the artwork. Don’t worry, we made sure P-22 was included within those designs even though he was outside of the main mural!
LOS — Griffith Observatory & Local Parrots
FE — William Mulholland Memorial Fountain
L — Shakespeare Bridge
I — Steamboat Willie
Z — Hollyhock House
BOTTOM - P22 Mountain Lion
Year: 2026
Mural Size: 12’ H x 8’ W
Location: 1870 N Vermont Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90027