Drawing from memory /  by Wendy Murray

Lesley Wheeler & Wendy Murray, December, 2023
Working with Wendy is hopping onto a train that’s already going, happily. We spent afternoons figuring out how to merge our strengths to create something big. I brought up the research I had done on Paul DeLongpre, a French painter of flowers who lived in Hollywood just as Hollywood became Hollywood. We saw in him mystery—an artist who made a (opulent) living solely from his ability to paint extremely realistic, beautiful flowers, who drew thousands of people to his home and gardens to see where the magic happened. But now, where his mansion once stood is a city block. A parking lot, a coffee shop, an abandoned movie theater. We have plans for how to interact with this site. But, we started with these drawings and writings. Wendy drew a moment or memory from our visit to the block on a sweltering hot summer day, and I wrote in response to her image. All impulse, no revisions on either of our parts.

It Feels Like September
in hollywood, when the smells reach a fever pitch and we approach the parking lot with curiosity of what was, looking for clues under cracked asphalt.

The house of flowers is long gone, was even shortly there -- a flash of roses on dry terrain, a flood of tourists looking for petals rendered perfectly.

Now there's a coffee shop that shutters at five pm, a parking lot empty except for star wagons at rest, a guard booth with no guard, the heat of the day.

emanating upwards. The house of flowers hovers an inch above it all, a ghostly outline of confustin and confident claims to that which was never capturable.

1. It Feels Like September, 5x7in, type text on card

2. Drawing Trash from Memory, 5x7in, ink pen, type text on card

3. The Site, 5x7in, type, ink pen, text on card

4. Roses, 5x7in, type, ink pen, text on card

5. Artifacts, Roses, 5x7in, type, ink pen, text on card

6. I Dream of you, 5x7in, type, ink pen, text on card

Dear Paul
your Legecy lives in two places: a street parallel and a little and a little south of where you walked garden paths each morning, and on the wall of the coffee shop bathroom at perfect viewing height.
they framed a postcard
we have more questions.

7. Der Paul, 5x7in, ink pen, type text on card

2. Drawing Trash from Memory
drawing trash from memory isn’t easy - which branches bore blooms or paper cups?
how did the underwear flop out onto the sidewalk?
this is still life, a document of what blew through.

3. The Site
This is a coffee shop
the idea of gathering
of tending to
this is a tour bus company,
specializing in the past
you can take a good selfie from here
this is the city block ever-changing, a foot before in the now, what will tomorrow say?

4. Roses
They’re less timeless
and more time-full.

5. Artifacts
some artifacts last five thousand years
before turning into dust to be swept
in Hollywood, each day
is longer than the last
what do we leave behind?

6. I Dream of you
hello from
the house of flowers
a garden with every rose
I dream of you.

NEW DATES / STUDIO WORKSHOPS with WENDY MURRAY /  by Wendy Murray

Enjoy 4 hours screen printing with Wendy Murray hosted at her Silver Lake studio. Solo workshops can be attended by you alone or I’m happy for you to workshop with your BFF or significant other - 2 for the price of one! We will all work together to make an edition print print together & it’s heaps of fun! Please contact me if you have any questions - otherwise BOOK HERE >

We wear Tracks /  by Wendy Murray

WM x Lesley Wheeler
We Wear Tracks, 2023
Collaborative project by Los Angeles based artists Wendy Murray and Lesley Wheeler.

Wendy and I met in the parking lot of a vegan restaurant in Silverlake. We were both working an artists’ market on a hot Saturday afternoon in July. My umbrella was losing its fight against the sun. If I don’t stay at my table during events I lose potential customers—poems don’t write themselves! But I did a lap of the market, saw each booth, and said some hellos to the fellow artists. I noticed in particular Wendy and her table of vibrant prints which shouted messages into the bright, clear day. We followed each other on Instagram.

In late July, Wendy posted photos of the most glorious palm tree print—three tall skinnies bending over the viewer as if observing the creature that walks below them. I messaged Wendy to see if I could buy one from her if she happened to any left after that day’s market. She one-up’ed me with an even better idea—that we collaborate on making text to go with the print.

We Sway; You Wear Tracks II, 2023 / Serigraph, 8 1/2 x 11 in

We Sway; You Wear Tracks I. 2023
Serigraph, 8 1/2 x 11 in

Wendy and I met in the parking lot of a vegan restaurant in Silverlake.

When I showed up to Wendy’s studio, I found myself in the most creatively alive environment I’ve been in in a long time. I didn’t know what to expect, but was excited to find a new friend. I thought we were going to hang out and talk about art, markets, and what it’s like to chase this particular dream in Los Angeles in 2023. And we did all those things, but we also did so much more—almost instantaneously we began to collaborate.  Wendy had a bowl of grapes and gluten free bread I could eat, and we just started in on it.

Things are looking down

She showed me how she sets text with Letraset, and helped me set a word in my tiny reporter’s notebook—mint. From there we found words to accompany the image. What do we see? What feelings come up? What’s the perspective, and what is being said with this image? We came up with two possibilities: Things are looking down and We sway; you wear tracks. 

To me, the tree trio appears as if looking down upon the viewer—three sentries of Los Angeles from on high pause just for a moment to say hello. But the way the heat has been this summer, it’s important to acknowledge that hey, things are not so great right now. Nothing can compete with Los Angeles at its most beautiful, but still—things are looking down. 

Things are Looking Down IV, 2023
Serigraph, 8 1/2 x 11 in

Things are Looking Down I, 2023
Serigraph, 8 1/2 x 11 in

But what of the other movements the palms make? They sway. They make small sky loops, barely moving unless you watch closely. Okay so if they’re swaying, what are we doing down here? We wear tracks into the ground below, walking and driving over the same paths day and again. 

After this initial session of creating words and ideas and finding the right Letraset sheets, Wendy set to. She created iteration after iteration of beautiful prints melding the words, images, and colors of a most electric, smoggy, neon sky. The results are born of a moment absolutely captured, of two sets of creative impulses at home with one another in Los Angeles. - Lesley Wheeler