The Sisteen Garage

At the beginning of March we got very excited because a muralist in Ballard said he would paint our alley garage. On a lark, we sent him an email because we had seen his stuff on various buildings, and structures in Ballard and Fremont. We really thought it was fun and bright, innocent and cartoon like. But it also looked just unique enough to have a specific voice.

His name is Ryan Henry Ward (more about him here: http://www.seattlepi.com/visualart/400609_muralist19.html). And he showed up this weekend and painted these AWESOME murals on all four sides of our garage.

He is friendly, has a cool dog, and cool back story. He's been painting in schools in the area this winter, but as the sun came out this month, so did he. We were lucky enough to be on his list.

Yesterday, 8 different neighbors came by to check it out. Apparently, we're going to get some traffic down our alley. That's cool and all, but we're mostly excited for Farrow to name her new pet Sasquatch.

Thanks again to Ryan for finding time in his schedule to transform our molding, battleship gray garage, into something bright and whimsical. We hope to see him around.

We're on a Roll.

So, these murals have been popping up all over Ballard in the past year. They are painted by a local artist named Ryan Henry Ward. I've noticed them a lot because I pass a couple of them everyday on my way to work. They're fun and bright, lighthearted and are big enough they really brighten up the neighborhood. I really like them a lot. Info here:

http://www.myballard.com/2008/08/12/murals-popping-up-around-ballard-fremont/

Anyway, on the same day I sent an email to the radio show about Iceland, Teri read about this guy and decided to write him. He's been written up in Seattle Magazine, The Stranger, Seattle Times and couple ofhter local blogs.

You see we painted our house a while back but didn't paint our garage because we thought we might someday push it down. Well, that hasn't happened, and it needs to be painted. And after a nice email from Teri, Henry has decided to do it. All four sides this month however he wants to do it. Here are more of his murals:

http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=ryan+henry+ward&m=text

We are basically getting this done for free and are really excited. I have no idea if it is going to be robots or weird animals or what. All we asked was that it was bright and cartoon-y. Photos when it is finished. Anything to keep our home value up!