Street Painting in Germany

Mother and Daughter invited to
Germany to Street Paint

My daughter, Carmen Chaparro, age 19, and I recently returned from a trip to Germany to participate in two street art festivals.  We traveled to the small town of Sogel, which only has about 5,000 residents (and 10,000 sheep), for the inaugural International Street Art Festival – Sogel, on September 26 & 27 .  About 25 professional artists from Italy, Russia, Ukraine, France, Germany and Mexico were also invited and spent a week in the small town.  After the street festival was over, the artists stayed for the week and worked to complete various permanent murals around the town, including a school, utility boxes, and at our host facility, Marstall Clemenswerth.  Because my bag of supplies was lost on the trip over, my street art was done all in chalk and won the Public’s Choice award.  I was asked to reproduce the image for a mural in the Marstall Clemenswerth lobby, a retreat type lodge where we were staying.  It was an original design with a dove with feathers in all colors, being released by hands coming out of the ground.  They really liked the message of inclusiveness and peace that the image conveyed.  We were the only artists from the USA to attend.

The week in Sogel was an amazing opportunity to work and get to know these other great artists.  It was an experience I will never forget, and I am already thinking about how we could work out a similar event here in the US

We then traveled to Wilhelmshaven, a port city to the north, for the sixth annual International Street Art Festival –Wilhelmshaven on August 4 & 5, 2014.  About 40 artists from all over Europe, the US and Mexico participated in the event which drew thousands of visitors over the weekend.  Carmen was the youngest artist to participate in both events, and did her first 3D anamorphic piece.  It was titled “Sausage Dog” and was from a photograph of a Jeff Koons balloon dog made of sausage.  I did a 3D original work of a large forest fairy in blues and greens.

Michael Diers, the organizer of the Wilhelmshaven event said “I will say it again and I am really convinced about that: That was the best StreetArt Festival Wilhelmshaven than ever.  Your pictures are in quality and in concept extraordinary. Never before we had so much audience. You only saw and still see happy people. Thank you for your stay in our town and thank you for your talent and your friendship. We will see us in 2015 in Wilhelmshaven.”

Here is a link to a video of the Sogel event: http://youtu.be/T9IYia-7ZnA .  And below are some photos of our amazing trip!

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