Greetings Tour
In our first installment of Cultivating Conversations, we spoke to Victor and Lisa, the creative duo behind Greetings Tour. The two travel across the country creating murals that reflect the life and spirit of each location. These murals often become icons in their own right for both tourists and locals. Here we delve into their creative process, how community plays a role in their work, and take a look at some of their more unusual fans.
MEET LISA BEGGS FROM CANTON, OHIO
As a kid, I grew up dancing 25 hours a week. I attended a school for the arts, then studied dance and commercial photography in college. When I moved to New York City at 23, I was assisting fashion photographers and eventually managed a studio until I started working for myself. Since leaving NYC on the Greetings Tour, I built a portfolio of portraits and landscapes across the world.
MEET VICTOR VING FROM QUEENS, NEW YORK
I was heavily into graffiti culture growing up. I never attended an art school but developed my passion for art through graffiti. Everything I did was mostly letter based but I pushed myself into doing more imagery through small local gigs. After working a corporate marketing job for about 8 years, I decided to quit to pursue art full time! Lisa and I met on a photo shoot at a studio she was working at in the city back in 2013. I was hired to create some graffiti art on set and from there our journey began.
WHAT INSPIRED YOU TO START YOUR BRAND?
“The mid-century large letter postcard style represented travel and it was something we both loved.”
It was an adaptable concept that could incorporate different local imagery within one cohesive piece. We did our first mural in this style in Chinatown (Manhattan) on Allen St. With all the positive community feedback, we saw the opportunity to take this to a national level.
The year we met, we did a road trip around California together and really got inspired by the lifestyle out there. Lisa's family used to run a RV business, so we had the idea to live full time in a RV and try to do the project for just one year. Next thing you know...
“we were 5 years on the road after 40+ murals from coast to coast.”
“Every mural has its own story.”
Different cities and towns have different types of crowds and you certainly can’t please everyone! The one city that had a lot of positive feedback was the beautiful city of New Orleans! We painted there during Mardi Gras 2019 when the city is 24/7. Our mural there has heavy foot traffic on Magazine Street, so we had people taking photos with us nonstop.
How the mural came about was special as well. We were hunting for walls there when we stopped at an antique shop. When we were paying, the owner asked us where we were from. He grew interested in our project and a few weeks later (all credit to Fernando!) he got us this perfect wall along with crowdfunding through local businesses.
There's a stream of people constantly tagging us in photos in front of our murals. We've created a few Pinterest boards to start consolidating all the awesome interactions! They include everything from pet pigs and weddings to exotic car collections. The only issue we do have is when the murals are used commercially without our permission. We are totally open to collaborations but please do contact us about it first! We always fight for artists' rights when it comes to intellectual property usage.
HOW DOES THE INDIVIDUAL LOCATION AND CULTURE PLAY INTO YOUR WORK?
“The content within the letters all come from local residents and businesses.”
There's so much to fit into a limited space, so we often have to narrow down to the most timeless and iconic elements. We try to touch on landmarks, nature, history and culture. In addition, we sometimes give a letter or two to local artists to use as their canvas as a collaboration.
“We like to spend time in the cities prior to painting and talk to locals.”
Lisa photographs original content of the suggestions that I incorporate into the mural design. Since we are mobile full time in a RV, we can literally live in any neighborhood where we are about to paint to really get a sense of the community. Our favorite murals are the ones that we didn't plan too far in advance.
We happened to be in a city we really loved and a wall as our canvas to do whatever we wanted! When there's not too much funding, there's less direction from clients, so we actually do our best work under those circumstances. It gives us more creative freedom and the spontaneity to adjust the mural as we see fit throughout the painting process. Some of those murals included NOLA, Seattle and MOAB.
WHAT STATES DO YOU HAVE LEFT BEFORE YOU HAVE A MURAL IN EVERY US STATE?
We actually still have a lot of states left to do. States like Ohio have several murals so it's been a slow process since we can only do about 1 mural a month. Some states that we are really looking forward to paint in are: Oregon, Montana, Wyoming and Maine.
We stopped traveling during the pandemic. We always joked that living in a RV would be the ultimate doomsday scenario. In the beginning of shutdown, campgrounds closed and that’s where we usually get our fresh water and dump. Later when things began to open up, cases were rising, so we stayed away from smaller towns with fewer resources. We kept hearing stories from other full time travelers being told to ‘go home’ but that’s a tough situation when you are home wherever you are currently parked.
As a result, our 2020 projects got pushed back and it gave us time to really think about our mission. We came up with a grant to help a town hit especially hard.
“We are offering a free public mural to help brighten up their hometown spirits.”
The deadline to apply ended October 31st, 2020. But stay tuned as we will announce the winner December 1, 2020.
WHAT’S NEXT FOR GREETINGS TOUR?
One of our main goals was to branch out internationally but with the current pandemic, that’s been put on hold. As of this interview, we just finished one of our largest murals in Middlesboro, KY and the next one up is in Las Vegas, NV. We have a few Greetings Tour products in the works that will be released soon. We are currently mapping out Summer 2021 to check off more states with our Greetings From murals!
