Modern Mural's Genesis

I am asked this question quite frequently, and I just wanted to tell our story.

My husband and I lived in an old loft in downtown Chicago - the kind of loft that had the big red fire doors and a hand operated freight elevator. The real loft with charm, and lots of it. We loved the place and knew that we wanted to decorate it with some ridiculous edgy art. And LARGE. Being a few years out of college we were looking for art that was affordable but hot. Original art was too pricey and we didn't want to hang up a poster. We looked everywhere, with out success, and finally decided to do something unique.

Loft = large walls. We had something massive in mind, bought some huge acrylic sheets on eBay, drilled holes in the cement ceiling and purchased some stainless steel cable from Home Depot. The planning was done on weekends and after work, and involved more sweat than we thought.

Not knowing anything about the printing industry, we trekked over to a well known print/office supplies shop to get our photo printed. We were looking at blowing up our high res photo to 4 ft x 5 ft, black and white. For the price of a nice meal at Avec for 2 (with wine) we got a print that looked like it was xeroxed. We were crushed. We knew we could do better. For a few weeks, the acrylic sheets and tools lay by the wayside.

While waiting for our flight back to Chicago at the Phoenix airport a few weeks later, we pondered the situation more thoroughly. We wanted art that was cool, oversized, unique, bold and affordable. We couldn't find it. It was there in the airport bar in Phoenix where we scratched out our first business plan on a cocktail napkin. Modern Mural was born.