Keys of Survival
2024 Street Wise Mural Festival
Location: Garage doors of Vision Quest Brewery, 2510 47th St Suite A2, Boulder, CO 80301
Photos by Dona and Niko Laurita, and Cam Margera
In Keys of Survival, Skela casts a magical spell to protect the future of our environment.
Situated on the garage doors of VisionQuest Brewery, Mother Earth’s neon green hands stretch upwards from the earth, sprouting with leaves along her wrist, hands, and fingers. Long blue nails extend from each finger. Tied in a bow to her pointer finger is black and yellow caution tape. From Mother Earth’s left hand springs a wolf with deep purple fur and golden yellow eyes. The wolf gazes toward the other palm on which sits a magenta flower. A bee buzzes above the flower’s center poised to pollinate the plant. The bee’s black and yellow body mimics the caution-tape bow. Skela sets the scene against a galactic atmosphere. Luminous orange streaks crisscross the blue and purple sky shimmering with stars. The galactic scene compliments VisionQuest’s sign featuring a dog in an astronaut suit.
Skela’s galactic style takes inspiration from the 1980s as well as her quest to write her own mythology. The artist believes that the universe contains magic. Her futuristic tales involve creatures that come to this world to protect, educate, and bring joy to Planet Earth. After spending much of her life traveling and living in many different places, Skela often feels she doesn’t belong to any one culture; her mythology allows her to create a culture of her own. (Stay tuned for a book of these stories to accompany her artwork!)
In her mural for #SWMF2024, Mother Earth holds the keystone species in her hand, sheltering them from forces like climate change and habitat destruction. As keystone species, the wolf and the bee play a central role in defining the entire ecosystem that surrounds them. The artist chose these animals because they are opposite ends of the ecosystem. Wolves keep the balance between predator and prey of all sizes and prevent the overgrazing of tree saplings and other plants. Bees play an important role in pollination, supporting crops for human consumption and providing food to other animals like birds, insects, and bears. Without these important fauna, our ecosystem would become imbalanced with drastically negative effects on our food and water systems and the landscape.
By increasing our knowledge of and respect for these important animals, we can find ways to live in equilibrium with keystone species like the wolf and the bee.
About the Artist:
Skela is an artist who harnesses her “Sanguine Skills” to illuminate even the darkest of days. Sanguine means to be particularly positive in a bad situation and her skills are everything she has picked up on her journey.
Growing up in France and Malawi and having lived all over the world, Skela was stung by the itch to travel and discover the magic of each culture she encounters. The world has become overwhelmingly negative, so her mission is to infuse it with color and joy.
She characterizes her artwork by a style she calls "Skelarizing," a geometrical shell that embodies and explodes with color, nature, and energy. Skela has been creating and exploring her own allegorical mythology, while discussing extinction, pollution, and the plethora of discrepancies on the planet. She considers herself an Artivist at heart.