From Fear To Hope: Plywood Mural Rises From Boarded Up Windows

MANHATTAN BEACH, CA — There's a lot you can do with plywood. Build something. Span a gap to create a bridge. Paint it. And you can put the three together [building, creating a bridge and painting] for a good cause, even if the wood's original use was for a pretty grim reason, like looting. But put it to good use they did, as Matthew and Monica Welch had the plain plywood used to board up windows as protection against possible looting turned into a mural, bridging the gap between fear and hope.

"It [putting up the plywood] was one of the most depressing things I have done as a small business owner," Matthew, who, with Monica, owns Pacific Coast Gallery, told Manhattan Beach Patch. "It felt like a complete waste of time and energy, but better to do it and not need it, then to need it and not have done it." With civil unrest over the death of George Floyd at the hands of police growing throughout the nation, including Los Angeles, Long Beach, Beverly Hills and Santa Monica, he put the plywood up to protect their downtown Manhattan Beach business, as did many other MB businesses. But the Welchs decided to take an uncomfortable situation and turn it into something positive, all while making a contribution to the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. And using art as a way to inform and educate others seemed like the most natural thing to do.

"As a photographer, the job is reduction and abstraction, turning 360 degrees of chaos into 30 degrees of simplicity," he said. "It is all about reduction and abstraction, taking an ugly jumble of distracting elements in the world and subtracting them until there's something simple and beautiful. I think the plywood appeared as a similar thing, something ugly that could be beautified. Also, as an art gallery, we generally see the world as a canvas, so when we saw the ugly plywood, we immediately saw it as a blank canvas."

The couple turned to local artist Josh Barnes "to see if he would be interested in turning this plywood from a look of fear into a mural with a message of hope, change, love and peace," said Matthew. "Josh paints a lot of large scale murals, and is a great artist to work with. He's a great conceptual artist; he's fast, flexible, and we just love his style." Barnes eagerly accepted the work, happy to donate his time and work.

Taken down just days after it was painted, the mural is being sold as one piece (roughly 16-feet wide) or three separate panels and was designed to work as one piece or three separate pieces. "So if we don't find a collector who wants to acquire the entire mural, then we will sell each piece separately," said Matthew. They do have two parties that are interested in one panel each. Anyone who wants to purchase the entire mural or a panel, may do so on the gallery website or by calling (310) 853-3564.

Said Matthew, who moved the gallery from Hermosa Beach to MB about a year ago, "We have received an enormous amount of support from the community while painting this mural, and it really gave us a great sense of what an amazing community we live in. We have received tons of emails, and messages on social media supporting the message. Additionally, when I was boarding up the windows initially, many people stopped and asked if I needed a hand. Many people would drive by, park, get out of their car, and walk back down the street to see if I needed help. It was truly remarkable. I think we were all hurting from what happened to George Floyd, what was happening with the looting, and looking for some small way to help, and this was a manifestation of that. It was really remarkable. This is such an amazing little town we get to call home, filled with so many compassionate people."

Pacific Coast Gallery, 1217 Highland Avenue, is open from 11:30 a.m.-6 p.m. Monday-Saturday, and 9 a.m.-3 p.m. on Sunday.