Behind the Mural: “The Inquirer”

Note: Like many of my peers, I’ve been begrudgingly adding the disclaimer that no AI is or was used (consciously) in any part of my writing, art, and anything else in my life for that matter. I wish it wasn’t necessary, but I also don’t want skills I worked hard for over many years to be downplayed as AI. My two favorite things in the world are drawing and writing, and I’d rather chop off my dominant hand than give my creative process up to a machine. But I also refuse to abolish useful writing tools like the Em dash to appease the anti-AI sleuths. Which altogether leaves me only with an explicit no-AI policy.

The start of this mural had to be pushed into spring, but at least that way it coincided with nearly perfect mural weather. This was a trifecta of firsts for me: the most immersive, the largest and the most instructive, steeply learning-curved commission I’ve ever had. All of my key takeaways from past murals came to the forefront during the making of this one. I’ve collected some here that stood out to me.
I really appreciate the online openness of the art community and everything I’ve learned from other creatives over the years, so I’m always happy about a chance to give something back and share my learning curves, as well 🙂

The Meaning

This neighborhood is known for its space-themed streets, so when I was asked for a matching design, it felt like my dream job. ‘The Inquirer’ is a small tribute to the genuinely inquisitive explorers of our universe, and their commitment to human knowledge. Designing and researching for this mural had me reminiscing about my own escapist childhood spent drawing constellations & planets, learning about space, and observing the world more closely. I wanted to capture this kind of immersive, reverential, awestruck curiosity that’s unique to children, easily disappears in adulthood and outright contradicts the current outgrowth of tech billionaire-led, privatized space “exploration” – aka trashing the atmosphere, impeding the work of astronomers, to name just two of many.
To me, the junction of art and science highlights the value of answerless questions, understanding limits, knowing when to inquire instead of opine, and not being to be the smartest person in a room full of experts. In just being enlightened by discoveries and learning, blinded by nobody.

The Cat’s Paw Nebula is inspired by a photo taken by the James Webb Space Telescope in 2025 (CC BY 4.0 INT license), which I creatively color-adjusted a little to fit my client’s logo colors. For Lunokhod 1 – this street’s namesake and the first remote spacecraft in history on an extraterrestrial surface -, I referenced photographs and artwork by Petar Milosevič and Nick Stevens. Thank you also to my photographer friend Kai for his drone shots at the doodle grid stage. Please check out their respective portfolios.

Process Tidbits

Design struggles
For reasons I’m still investigating within myself, I really struggled with the portrait portion of the design. Likely a combination of adjusting my own selfie references to make them look like a child’s pose, and also overthinking the search terms for reference photos of children on stock photo sites. (I came across photos and poses that… just should not be on stock photo sites, in my opinion. Really borderline inappropriate stuff, so I quickly stopped that.) I worked with what I had and ended up with different final versions, all of which I disliked – bar the one you see. The struggle was real, lol. Seriously, it brought back some good old self-doubt about my artistic skills for several months.
Conclusion: When I’m stuck on a design, I try not to beat myself up and take more breaks than normal. I also don’t try to convince myself to keep going. If I need a fresh start, I’ll do it over as many times as I want, which applies both to digital and analogue canvas work.
(Also, if possible… flag/report half-naked children on stock photo websites. I mean, WTF!?)

Leveling up
I’m used to ladders & scaffolding but had never been on a lift before. The first time moving up (16 meters total), I felt a bit panicky. Sweaty palms, racing heartbeat, the whole deal. I remember thinking: Well, girl, now there’s no way out. Literally.
But well before the end of the one month long project, I’d lost my fear of heights. Completely crazy. I’d always been so scared of even lower heights, and now I feel like I could skydive?! An unexpected and very welcome side effect. I even started to enjoy the pretty intense swaying of the platform when the lift was fully extended.
Conclusion: Embrace the fun when you get to try cool new shit. And don’t forget appropriate PPE!

The people.
The amount of social interactions you have while muraling is absurd. I was already used to a high frequency, but this one really broke the mold. Several people either brought me drinks or offered to. My favorite moment was when a girl and her father came over fully equipped with instant coffee, a little tea cup, freshly boiled water in an unplugged kettle and a few delicious snacks from their home country. We chatted for a bit and the father proudly showed me his other daughter’s artwork from back home in Syria. It was the sweetest thing in a long time. And her art was really fucking good, too. I wish I’d asked for more info but at the time I thought they were going to return later to pick up their cup, and I didn’t think fast enough. If you’re reading this: I’m keeping your cup safe! 🥲

Side note: Sometimes people strike up a conversation when I’m already on the lift a bit higher up. That’s like the final boss in voice control: you have to speak loudly and clearly while still making sure you don’t come across as rude. Tricky! But fun. I’d already greatly improved my public speaking and presenting skills as part of my last day job, and I just love having developed a stronger and louder voice over the years.

The doodle grid backlash.
Now for the most entertaining part.

The doodle grid is a common, fairly easy method many artists use to transfer designs onto extremely large surfaces, usually just a bunch of simple doodles (see image). Previous projects had made me used to overwhelmingly positive feedback from pedestrians.

But here? When I started, there was a complete vibe shift. Not even two days into the doodle grid I was yelled at by multiple people for daring to “call this ugly shit art”, the safety barriers around the lift were pushed over (those things are HEAVY), people climbed on the lift to vandalize the doodle grid, and someone even threw food on the lift, though in my absence. My client started receiving so many complaints that they had to send a rep all the way to the location to check on what that crazy girl is doing smearing graffiti on the wall in broad daylight, lol.

The disruptions stopped for good in another whiplash-inducing turn of events on day 3, when the face outline became clearly visible. People now started telling me how excited they were about this seemingly becoming a pretty portrait. Definitely one of the most palpable vibe shifts I’ve experienced.

Although my favorite reaction was from a group of school children complimenting my “beautiful symbol art”. They genuinely loved it, and I love them for that. All of my favorite reactions are from children, which is why I try to go out of my way to respond to their questions or wave at them. They can’t help but be honest so you can trust their feedback – but even if that’s negative, they tend to be respectful and wide-eyed and excitable and constructive. It still blows my mind just how often children are more composed than adults.

Side note: Please don’t get me wrong. I don’t mind if someone dislikes my art or calls it ugly. Public art is exposed to public feedback, and negative feedback is just the price to pay for making public art. Full stop. If I was sensitive about my art being disliked, I wouldn’t be doing murals.
But one question keeps preying on my mind: Does art generally considered “ugly” really justify vandalism that directly targets the artist and their tools? I mean, when it all stopped, it felt like I was told: now that I enjoy your art, I decide that you don’t deserve being accosted. Someone even apologized after they realized where the mural was headed. That’s nice, but… still not a great feeling. l’m weirded out by the fact that people jumped THIS quickly to such physical measures that were clearly meant to target my work setup and make me feel less safe.
And then there’s the gender aspect that I hesitate to pull but that keeps floating around in the back of my mind – especially against the backdrop of being a woman and my plentiful experience with baseless, unprovoked physical and verbal harassment. Was I an easier target? I can only imagine what a non-white artist in this political region of Germany would be experiencing.
Friends and family tell me some people will always be like that. But man, I don’t know. If others can behave normally and inquire about what’s happening in a decent, respectful manner… why should I not hold everyone else to that same standard?

Conclusion: If you feel unsafe, listen to your gut feeling. Make a report if necessary. No one has the right to physically disrupt your space and potentially cause you harm, just because they don’t like the process. At the same time, I do feel that this is the type of trial-by-fire stuff you have to prepare for as an artist who’s moving into the public sphere mural by mural. It’s probably caused by new factors I simply didn’t have during previous mural commissions: A much more highly frequented neighborhood, the more official vibe of the setup (a whole fenced-off lift instead of a ladder or short scaffolding), the fact that I was less easily approachable overall by being up in the air more often, and maybe also my strategy for dealing with people who needlessly accost me: stubborn ignorance.

Communication with business partners.
It shocks me a bit whenever I run into much more experienced business people who communicate much less professionally than me. Maybe experience creates an exaggerated sense of safety, who knows.
Personally, I try and have everything in writing or follow phone calls up with written summaries. While retaining a professional and polite tone and delivery at all times, no matter how upset I am. (I can’t stress this enough: No amount of rightful anger expressed emotionally and poorly is worth risking your long-term reputation for. Discontentment can be expressed politely yet confidently. I try never to react immediately, but instead take a few breaths, hours or even days to think options over.) Also, the artist tends to be the face of a project, and as a result, they’re the one who needs to take overall accountability for everything – including problems caused by third party companies. At the end of the day, it’s all about your reputation.

Outsourcing weaknesses
This is something I heard from a female shark on shark tank and have been waiting for a chance to implement since. For upcoming mural projects, an assistant will be supporting the organizational and logistical aspects of my mural work, like permits, bookings and paperwork, so that I can focus exclusively on managing what I’m good at: the creative and communication side. Which is a decision I expect to improve the overall quality of my work significantly. I’m also excited about this being closest I’ll get to work within some resemblance of a “team” again, which is the one thing I miss as a lonesome freelancer. Overall, in the past couple of years I’ve learned very fast that identifying my weaknesses is essential to my freelancing business, and that outsourcing them to people with the proper smarts and brains needs to become a priority.

(And don’t forget your professional liability insurance!)

Finally: Work flow issues
I’ve always struggled badly with focus and task completion, and I tend to become messy fast, even if I try hard to maintain some level of tidiness – in every aspect of my life, not only painting. Medication has a benefit, but I still jump around between tasks, often against my will. Because everything feels equally important at all times and invokes the same sense of urgency.
Here are some solutions that work for me:
1) Set timers for each tasks, one hour maximum but ideally much less, and name them, e.g. “fill in left ear roughly”, “fill out black spaces only”, “eye highlights and right eyebrow”. (I am still in the process of adjusting the duration of each according to my natural habits.)
2) Work according to my point of performance (learned that from her). Example: I keep dropping my cans where I stand and then stumbling over them while in hyperfocus. So instead of trying and failing to break that habit, I’m currently experimenting with buckets and hangers I can just chuck my cans into.
3) Force at least one large break during which I do NOTHING mural-related. Watch a video, read an article, go for a walk, get a coffee, eat something, listen to music. To recalibrate and give my brain a chance to visually refresh its perspective on my work. At least 30 to 45 minutes. You know, like on a regular job, lol.
Overall, the discipline lies in preparing for the issues – not to try and change the issues.

My overall conclusion as always is: No regrets, only growth. Breathe, eat, sleep & have fun.