It's not every day that a project feels like it was made for you — but this one in Culver City came pretty close. I'm honored to have been a part of it, and a big thank you to Mural Colors for making the production side of things incredibly smooth. Creatively speaking, it's one of the most natural collaborations I've had in a long time. Thanks to the team at League of Conservation Voters (LCV) for making this possible and being extremely supportive of my creative vision!

Protect Our Public Lands by Victor Ving - Mural in Culver City CA

A little over ten years ago, my wife Lisa and I packed our lives into a small RV and set out to paint a series of postcard murals across the country. That project became the Greetings Tour — and for the first five years, the road was home. Between painting cities, we spent our time deep in national parks, monuments, and wide open BLM lands that I never knew existed growing up as a kid surrounded by buildings and concrete in New York City.

That experience changed everything for me. It was genuinely eye-opening, and it planted a deep appreciation for the natural world that's stayed with me ever since.

That love of the outdoors is ultimately what brought us here to settle in Los Angeles. As a mural artist and someone deeply committed to environmental themes in public art, LA made perfect sense. We now have access to some of the most incredible landscapes in the country right at our doorstep — mountains, desert, coast — whenever we need to escape and recharge.

We were able to paint the mural off-site on Mural Cloth so that we could reveal it as a surprise to the community. We used some neon colors to really catch the eye and the photos don’t justice of how it was glowing! Likely, the neon won’t last long term outdoors so we coated it with a base color underneath. The canvas was then cut out and installed on custom cut panels at the mural site.

This particular mural was inspired by vintage travel decals from an era before photography was mainstream. Back then, artists had to capture a place through sketching, memory, and imagination. There's something raw and romantic about that process — and something that photorealism, as much as I love working in that style, can never quite replicate. Since it’s raised off the wall, it casts a subtle shadow and actually feels like a giant floating sticker. We like this approach because it allows the artwork to be preserved and even relocated if the property changes hands or the wall ever requires maintenance in the future.

No photograph captures the feeling of standing in front of a grand landscape for the very first time. That sense of scale, of stillness, of being genuinely small in the best possible way — it's the kind of thing that stays with you. As an environmental mural artist, it's that feeling I'm always chasing in the work.

If you haven't spent time in these wild places, I genuinely encourage you to go. You'll quickly understand why they're worth fighting to protect.

My hope with this piece is simple: that the bright colors stop people in their tracks, spark some curiosity, and raise awareness for the incredible organizations working to preserve these landscapes. Public art has a way of starting conversations that might not happen otherwise — and in a neighborhood like Culver City, with so many eyes passing by every day, that feels like a real opportunity.

The mural is located along theBallona Creek Bike Path which is a 7-mile, mostly paved, car-free commuter route connecting Culver City to the Santa Monica Bay at Marina del Rey. It significantly reduces greenhouse gas emissions by promoting active transit and is undergoing expansions to increase accessibility, native habitat restoration, and improved water runoff quality.

Thanks again to Mural Colors, LCV and California Environmental Voters for the support, and to everyone in the community who came out to the reveal event.