Callan and the Grackle: Community through Art

I was sitting at the bar at Equinox Brewing in Old Town Fort Collins one day and noticed this pair of hands wrapped around a pint glass. They looked a little weary, streaked with paint. I asked the man they belonged to if I could take a picture. 

The paint-streaked hands of a muralist.

We talked. I had just bought my first real camera, a used Fujifilm X100V, and was learning the art of photography. The man’s name was Callan Zink, and he had just started his graduate thesis project, a mural of a grackle on the north-facing wall of the brewery. He had just finished setting up scaffolding and putting the first brush strokes, in black, to sketch his design for the bird. 

A muralist paints his initials on the wall.

I asked if I could informally document his progress with the mural through photography, showing up while he was working and snapping shots as he worked. Callan liked the idea, and for the next few weeks I caught him through the camera hundreds of times. 

Callan Zink stands on scaffolding to paint touches on a mural.

Finally, it was done. I met Callan at the brewery to capture him against the finished work. He was happy. Proud. Beaming, deservedly. When he read his thesis project to his professors and fellow grad students he mentioned me and the friendship we’d built during the process. Art through community, he called it. 

The artist leans on the scaffolding to contemplate his work.

Callan admiring his work.

We’re still friends, and I couldn’t be more proud of Callan letting me learn about him and document his art through photography.