Scotts Valley's New Mural Almost Complete

Scotts Valley's project got off to a great start on Saturday, with community members of all ages coming out to help paint the 93-foot wall of the Cinelux movie theater in the Kings Village Plaza.

At the end of a long day, the mural had taken an impressive and colorful form, but was not quite finished yet: painting will resume next Saturday at 9 a.m.

"It's actually turned into a mural-in-a-week project," joked Dawn Teall of , the nonprofit arts collective that organized the project.

Ruth Poe, the artist who won the call for movie-themed artist submissions, says the project was "a total collaboration."

The mural, which Poe named "Moving Pictures," consists of five different old school movie posters featuring Hollywood stars, and is an ode to the 100 movies shot in and around Scotts Valley since the 1900's. 

"They're satirized movie posters, we changed the movie titles to have something about Scotts Valley or the mountains," Poe said. 

For instance, the Clint Eastwood poster is named Once Upon a Time in Scotts Valley and the Betty Davis poster is titled Mountain Mitzi.

All of the posters are done in black, white, and two values of gray, so they absolutely pop against the colorful background. A swirling red carpet loops along the entire wall to signify the fluidity and movement of the moving picture. Redwood trees, monarchs, a surfer on a break, and a bird and a bee, a nod to Hollywood's more sensual subject matter, also make up the background.

"My big challenge as an artist was make something that can literally be put on the wall like a paint-by-numbers,” Poe said. "There's almost no blending." 

This made it easy for anybody to show up and paint, as the cans were already labeled with the number of the section they should paint. 

"So it's a little cartoony, but I think it works and translates well on the entire wall," said Poe, of the community collaboration.

"People in the community who don't consider themselves artists came out today and helped us like crazy, and had so much fun being a part of this and helping put it up," said Teall, who wants the Mural-in-a-Day project to reach local artists and non-artists alike.

The bottom four feet of the mural is painted black, with the silhouettes of people's heads, "a nod to the audience," said Poe, and a way to solve the problem of lower portions of walls getting filthy. She also hopes it will deter tagging, which she doubts will happen.

"There are a lot of awesome graffiti artists out there and it seems like they really honor artwork," Poe said.

The new Moving Pictures mural was made possible by all volunteers and donations from local businesses. "Everything was donated, even the scaffolding," Poe said.

Businesses that helped sponsor the mural project include: Cinelux, Lenz Arts, Scarborough Lumber, Kings Paint, McCown Painting, A Tool Shed, and Ow Family Properties.

Painting to complete Moving Pictures will resume next Saturday, Aug. 4 at 9 a.m. All are welcome to join in, just wear clothes that you don't mind getting paint on!