Artist reaches new peak with Bloomington mural

Artist Erik Pearson likes to do big paintings. His best-known work, a piece seen by hundreds and perhaps thousands of people each day, required 13 gallons of primer and about 25 gallons of paint.

For the fine detail, he used a 4-inch roller.

The St. Paul artist is the creative force behind the giant mural on the northeast corner of Bloomington Civic Plaza, which includes City Hall as well as an arts complex with a theater, studios and two art galleries.

The mural, which was dedicated earlier this month, depicts a crowd of intertwined artists creating their art while supporting one another. A ceramist throws a pot with one hand and uses the other to support a dancer in mid-air. The dancer has her hand on a violin, helping a musician play the instrument. A brass player blows a horn while painting with one hand.

"I wanted a way to represent the arts organizations that were in the building," Pearson said. "Everybody is related; they're all supporting each other. I'm fascinated with characters in tight spaces interacting and how they relate."

The mural cost about $120,000, half of it a donation. Jim Urie, the manager of the city's Center for the Arts, said most of the reaction to the painting has been positive.

"I hear mostly good comments, but some people think it's a little too daring," he said. "My own opinion is that it's not a super-edgy piece, but it's still challenging enough for our community."

Pearson grew up in Superior, Wis., and got a degree in studio art from the University of Wisconsin-Superior. After graduation he tried to paint while supporting himself with different jobs -- bookbinding, screen printing, maintenance supervisor -- but found he had less and less time for his art. That changed in 2001, when he was selected for a monthlong stint as artist-in-residence at the Cornucopia Art Center in Lanesboro, Minn. The position carried a stipend, and when he wasn't out in the community, he was painting.

"That's when I realized that if I were to just paint and not have the other jobs, how much I could actually get done," Pearson said. "I could catch up with the ideas that I had."

Pearson's first mural was done in 2005 on a theater wall in Lanesboro, depicting the community through the seasons. Using Pearson's design, residents -- including kindergartners, the Sons of Norway and the Library Board -- did the underpainting. The artist finished it off.

The next year he did a mural in a Superior coffeehouse. The painting ran up the wall and over the ceiling.

Last spring, the building manager at the Carleton Artist Lofts in St. Paul, where Pearson lives and has his studio, alerted him that Bloomington was seeking artist proposals for a giant mural. The painting was to go on stucco on the top northeast corner of the new building, the sole open space left on the mostly brick and copper-clad building.

At 2,500 square feet, the planned mural was almost four times bigger than anything Pearson had painted before. He had to stretch his business skills by doing a budget and collecting estimates for scaffolding, paint and insurance.

Twenty-three artists applied. Pearson was chosen.

He was elated, but scared -- he's afraid of heights. The job would require scrambling up and down a 35-foot scaffold perched on the roof of the building's first floor.

His plan: "To start at the bottom and work up, and hope I'd get over it."

Pearson used a computer to print out sections of his design on standard sheets of paper. Each sheet represented what needed to be painted on a four-foot area of the stucco wall. He transposed the design freehand into a chalked-on grid on the wall.

His father-in-law helped with the first layer of colors on the highest part of the walls, but during the roughly seven weeks it took for Pearson to do the mural, he grew comfortable with working on the scaffold even when it swayed in the wind.

It was 90 degrees on many of those days, and he kept a stock of sports drinks nearby as he worked in the shade of the scaffold. People in cars that passed on W. 98th Street would sometimes shout encouragement. Most days, the only times Pearson saw the work in progress from the ground was in the morning when he arrived and in the evening when he left.

"I would just step to one side to look, or try to visualize what it looked like," he said. "Otherwise, it would take 20 minutes to get up and down the scaffolding and across the street to look."

Toward the end, he said, he looked for reasons to keep climbing the scaffold and perfect the mural. When it was complete and the scaffolding came down, seeing the work's intense colors and bold design from the ground "was shocking, kind of surreal," Pearson said. "You have a design on a little piece of paper and suddenly, there it is, big. It was a strange feeling."

The mural should last 10 to 15 years, and then the paint will begin to fade. Eventually it will have to be repainted or replaced.

But that's fine with Pearson.

"I took a lot of pictures," he said. "Nothing is really forever. The idea will remain, and people will remember it."

Mary Jane Smetanka • 612-673-7380

Mary Jane Smetanka • smetan@startribune.com