It was really funny asking permission to set up in the mall to do this painting. I asked security guards downstairs and they were like, “Yeah, there's not a chance, you know, they're going to say no.” And I just walked into the office and the guy was really nice and he said, “Sure!” And so I brought my stuff. It was a big panel, and I had an easel to work off of and kind of drew the structure.

And then I put all the people in there, and each person has its own story maybe, you know like the woman with the pink top on the left with the long, straight brown hair, that's my wife, Marie. This guy wearing a baseball cap backwards is my buddy, Dave Hall. And I didn't really do this intentionally, it just kind of came out of me like that. And this guy sitting right behind him is my buddy, Charlie. The security guard actually was a guy that I went to high school with. And, like, this one t-shirt says “enough is enough” about consumerism. And it’s like a church or something, you know, we find a sense of identity, who we are at these places of commerce. Doesn't go much deeper than that, you know, it's just more just a place that I love to go not for shopping, but just to people watch. 

The Bootery is where Side Street Espresso was. And I love this image so much because of the glow of the sign and how modern things look. It just looks like it's this really high-end boutique. And this escalator, I guess it was Caribou’s and then it was Montgomery Wards. And I've talked to several people that they were kids when this opened up, and they would ride it all day long. So the sign says, “you’re leaving Anchorage, you're entering Spenard,” which I think is really funny like having this defined boundary. 

I loved the fact that, sometimes when you don't get customer satisfaction, there's different ways of clawing that back. And, you know, I think this guy definitely had his day. I did read a little something about this that he paid his parking meter every day for like a month. You know, he was not letting this go. And so he's written all over his car that he bought a lemon, and he was pretty upset about it. And he's kind of getting his pound of flesh, which is a crack up. 

 **