Fresh Coat of Paint Leaves Muralist Blue

He looked at the wall and saw red. Suddenly, artist Lawrence Day was ready to go to war over peace.

Day was outraged that a 60-foot mural titled “World Peace Now” that he had created on the side of a Westside shop was unexpectedly covered over with deep red paint.

He had labored three years over the 17-foot-high artwork. Executed in bright colors and with sweeping depictions of angels and celestial bodies, the mural was an attention-grabber in 1992 when it was completed at West 3rd Street and Sweetzer Avenue.

Day, an ex-hippie who had been weaned on the ideals of mellowness and human harmony, planned for the mural to be the cornerstone of an international peace initiative.

He planned to reproduce the mural on posters earmarked for Barcelona, Spain; Prague, Czech Republic; Atlanta and five other cities around the globe and market them to like-minded peace advocates.

That, he hoped, would later help pay local artists from each of the cities who would be commissioned to paint their own visions of world peace on murals in each of the cities.

Day says he was on the verge of lining up seed money for the venture when he got word Aug. 22 that his artwork was disappearing beneath the red paint. He had no idea that what would happen next would turn out to be an exercise in peacemaking.

“I was in my studio in Ojai when a guy across the street from the mural called and said they were painting over it. My three years of work was gone in two hours,” said Day, who is in his early 60s.

According to Day, frame shop owner Allan Marion failed to notify him that he intended to paint over the mural. Day contends that such notification is required by federal and state laws that protect artwork.

“My style is not to sue; I’m for peace,” said Day. “But he was supposed to give me 90 days’ notice before he did anything. He broke the law. It’s socially irresponsible.”

So Day was prepared to do battle the other day when he traveled to Los Angeles to see the damage.

Recovering from a leg injury suffered in his studio, he hitched a ride to town in a 1977 Volkswagen bus driven by poet Kimberly Jean Beaubelle--who in Ojai goes by the name Shiloh J. Sojourner.

At the frame shop, Day gazed dismissively at the red-painted wall before walking inside to talk with Marion. From his valise he pulled a photograph of the missing mural.

“I wanted people to look at the mural until their subconscious kicked in,” he said, pointing to the color photo.

“See the Torah right here? That double helix up there is an energy port. See the Earth? It’s right in the black hole, there in the center. On the right is Michelangelo’s slave. Right over here is apathy. If you can get by apathy you can go through the door of life,” he explained.

Day said he was proud of the hippie influence in the swirling, multicolor mural.

“The ‘60s were great. Yeah, I was a psychedelic artist; I guess I still am. There’s not a straight line in the whole mural,” he said proudly.

Soon it was time for the negotiations to begin. Day and Sojourner walked into the frame store to see Marion.

The shop owner was cordial. He insisted that he had given Day notice a year ago that he intended to replace the mural with fresher art. “World Peace Now” was fading from its years in the sun, Marion said.

“I thought it was time to take a different direction,” he said.

According to Marion, who has owned his frame shop 16 years, he had intended to keep the peace mural up for just two years. “But Larry kept saying, ‘Keep it up!’ He was so passionate. So I did.”

Marion agreed late last week to restore the mural. But, instead of a new paint job, the pair settled on a computer-generated vinyl copy--a process that billboard companies use these days. “With his bad leg, Larry can’t be climbing ladders,” Marion said.

The two men concurred that the new artwork will be about half the size of the original. But Marion wanted to mount it near the back of his store, over an awning. Day said no, it had to go where the original one had been. Marion consented.

Marion agreed to pay for the printing of the vinyl replacement. He also agreed to contribute $2,500 to Day’s world peace campaign.

“I didn’t realize how passionate he was about his cause,” Marion said. “Out of the tragedy of losing the mural is going to come something better.”

Day nodded. “We’re turning a negative into a positive,” he said.

The pair shook hands and Day climbed into Sojourner’s VW bus for the ride back to Ojai. It would be a peaceful trip.