When driving into Lyons, Colorado, you'll be greeted by my latest mural. And it's one of the most powerful pieces I've had the privilege to work on.

This mural is a memorial piece for a prismatic and precious soul, Christian Glass, who was murdered by police in 2022. When we were approached about the project, Martha and I prayed to his spirit to guide the art and to bless the building as a place of safety, healing, and inspiration. We felt his presence throughout the journey and feel honored to have created this work in his honor.  

After meeting with Christian’s mother, I was immediately drawn to the talisman of the winged lion and spent several days researching the various presence and forms throughout history. The winged lion has long been a symbol of protection, of strength and majesty, and there’s a very special quality of magic to it. I often start my work with sketches of a piece and then fairly quickly move to the digital realm. These lions felt different…more personal, more collaborative, and I spent a lot of time with each one traditionally, using colored pencils and taking a direction inspired by my friend Shrine‘s geometric work (he contributed the adornments around the adolescent lion and across the building).

Each lion eventually developed into a complete traditional work with its own spirit and character. Only then did I scan the pieces and work in the digital world to refine and flesh out the images so that they would be well defined at a large scale. Even so, I left artifacts of the traditional work in each lion, showing an evolution from the baby to the adolescent to the adult; the baby has the most hand drawn lines and the adult is the most digitally complete, though there are still remainders of the original, traditional work. The baby is a bit rough, but full of color and potential, like all creative beginnings. The adolescent is finding his own way, the spirit differentiating into his own becoming. We hoped to honor Christian’s different phases of life and in the adult male, to portray how we see him now: a strong manifestation from the spirit realm, watching over this small town of Lyons, Colorado and bringing life and inspiration with his paint-brush tail.

Christian's mural is located at Creative Grounds, a nonprofit cafe, art studio, and community space run by Christian's family in Lyons, Colorado. Please visit at 160 E Main St, Lyons, CO 80540.