Local muralist Hanna Daly was hired earlier this year to paint a wall mural in La Jolla. Then the coronavirus hit and, like many others, she found herself temporarily out of work.
But she went ahead and finished painting the mural on the Fresheria building at 627 Pearl St. anyway.
“With the downturn, we were able to just put it on hold,” said Daly, noting her work has largely been paused by the pandemic. “But then we decided, ‘Why not just voluntarily paint a mural for fun?’”
Daly presented her proposal to the building’s owner, the Murillo family, who’d commissioned her work, about still doing the mural. They were happy to pay for her supplies while she was donating her time, along with her assistant Carli Mitchell.
“I was told to do anything I wanted as long as it was fun and colorful,” said Daly, which satisfied her. She noted, “I’m into positivity, keeping everything good and uplifting.”
What the artist ended up doing she described as “a massive explosion of color. People just love color because it gives them so much joy. People just loved seeing this wall done in blue and purple, the organic way it turned out.”
The artist’s latest mural painting was truly free form and evolved as it developed.
“Street art is great because people walking by gave us ideas: It’s fun,” said Daly. “As you chat with locals, it (mural) changes as the day goes on.”
The Fresheria mural took a total of about 10 hours to paint. Daily described it as “super long,” running some 100 feet and being 15-feet square. “The highest parts were really hard to get at with a paintbrush, so we had to improvise and use a ladder to paint the top,” she said. Daly was inspired to become an artist early, actually painting her first mural in her bedroom as a pre-teen. With her wife’s blessing, Daly started her mural-painting business in 2005 and has never looked back. Her work is now scattered throughout the San Diego County gracing walls on schools, hospitals, buildings, bars, businesses, even skate parks.
“It’s been a really great job,” she said of mural painting. “Always different.”
A favorite mural of Daly’s adorns Children’s Hospital. She also did a massive seven-story mural in North Park.
Of her work, Daly said, “I don’t have one distinct style. I do all kinds of stuff from little babies to street art.”
Daly’s prices are negotiable depending on the nature and length of the job. But typically, her cost varies from a minimum of $750 to about $2,500.
Of her latest offering, the newly minted Fresheria mural, Daly noted: “When I was painting it I realized we’re all missing so much right now, and that everybody misses the same things – the beach, sunshine, just being together with friends. So I put a cupcake in there (mural). We called it Quarantine Dreams. We’re all in this together, and we all want the same things in our lives.”