https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASla_HRObIc
Still in Tulum and back at the hotel, we continued to do all the usual things people do at an all-inclusive resort. Pool time, activities, lots of eating! And then after the 'show', or perhaps it was during a show, I bumped into this fellow using spray paint to depict the Mayan ruins. Like others we had seen, he had the usual display of his wares around him, what caught my eye was some of the original works that he had on display, alongside the 'usual' Chichen Itza in the moonlight paintings. One in particular was a picture that seemed to depict a river running through time. I asked him about it and he told me it was almost from a dream he'd had and was trying to capture. It was about the interconnectedness of time.
Of course he had me right there, and to tell you why means I must segway into another story for a moment. You see, by this time my film work had prompted me to begin writing a pilot for an original TV show that I'd conceived and was preparing to film, okay, well - hoping to film - back home. You guessed it, it's a time travel show called 'SomeWhen'. We can talk more about SomeWhen later, (it's not done yet), but it meant I was also interested in anything to do wth time travel.
Anyway, seems everyone else was at the evening show and it was anything but busy, so I introduced myself to Spray Paint Artist Porfirio Jimenez. We got to talking and I mentioned I was working on a Mayan Story. Turns out he is of Mayan descent, so he was quote interested. I gave him the elevator pitch of the story and he was inspried. I'm not sure If I asked or if he offered to paint what he envisioned from my description, but soon he was painting away! As he went along he occasionally asked what I thought, but I was more interested in what he had taken from my tale, so I asked him to paint only what he drew from my description.
Just watching a spray paint artist work is pretty awesome, but to see Porfirio take my tale and create his own visual impression of the story was... well amazing doesn't cover it. He was creating without reserve and visually bringing to life a story that moments ago lived in my head alone. It is a feeling like no other and I was honoured to watch him create. It was truly the first time that I watched an artist create art. This would be the Cover Art for the movie, er... story. ;)
What did it look like? Well, the header of the Designing Atlantis blog is a very small portion of the painting!