Sept. 8, 2005 - Shadow Of Ed

There once was a time when the painted shadows beneath the painted birds on the wall of the Blockbuster store that overlooks La Cumbre Road looked real. If you looked at them for a blink, you would think that they were real birds flying toward Peet’s Coffee Shop to scavenge muffin crumbs from underneath the tables. Today, the painted-on shadows look more like graffiti coverage than shadows. The owners of the Five-Points Shopping Center, who inherited the paintings when they took charge, seem to think that art is for the birds.

At Five Points, the birds facing La Cumbre are not the only building tattoos. Inside the shopping center, there are more birds, a rocking horse, and some painted windows. It was one of those painted windows that Edhat displayed as yesterday’s Wednesday Where Is It picture. The particular window we featured is just outside the front entrance to Blockbuster. There is also another window on the side of PETCO. That window has a person looking out of it. And, it’s not just any person; it’s one of the artists.

In a funny, serendipitous kind of way, the dedicated staff of edhat.com found out yesterday that one of the artists is Irma Cavat, a friend of Ed, and former Edhat person of the week. Around 1988, Ms. Cavat and her daughter, Karina (the one in the window) were commissioned by the former owner of Five Points to create the artwork. They had previously completed a similar project in Ventura for the same owner. There, they put realistic pictures of clouds and birds on a ceiling.

The dedicated staff of edhat.com spoke briefly with Irma Cavat yesterday. She said that she had done a lot of the design, but it was Karina who spent many a hot afternoon standing on scaffolding to get the pictures and the shadows just right.

She expressed some disappointment that the new owners of the mall had done such a shoddy job when they repainted the shadows. Proper shadowing, she told us, requires using different colors and fuzzing out the shapes into the background. She said that she had approached the Five Points management about doing the work, but they were not interested.

Some interesting tidbits she shared: the birds came from an Audubon book (real birds don’t sit still long enough to be good models); the rocking horse was a picture of the one they owned; and, that she had been impressed by how well the Liquitex Paint had lasted through the years.

Ms. Cavat also told us that she is about to open a show at the Rehab Institute. A reception will be held on September 16, from 5:00 to 7:00 at 2415 De La Vina. It will be a good opportunity for people to see her other (more representative) work.

Karina, it turns out, is a professional trompe l’oeil painter. She creates paintings that “fool the eye” – make an ordinary wall look like it has texture, depth, and architectural style.

In yesterday’s contest there were a few guesses of L’Ombrette and the Art Museum. Nineteen contestants guessed Five Points. As the Edhat dog slept soundly on the floor, dreaming of chicken scraps, we read the names of the 19 winners out loud, carefully monitoring her response. For some reason, the name SBNative caught her fancy. SBNative is the winner of an Edhat t-shirt and a bottle of FRS.

To SBNative and all recent winners who have been having trouble picking up their prize, please email ed@edhat.com with your address, t-shirt size, and color preference (gray or white) and we will deliver.

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