Another mural has popped up on Elmwood. Now it’s the Bureau crew that has orchestrated the artwork. You might recall that Bureau also led the charge for the Lip Service mural that was painted back in October. This time, the inspiration for the mural, on side of the Visualeyes building (735 Elmwood), came from a totally unexpected place – it’s a legendary Buffalo story that not even David Lynch could dream up.
Bureau owners Jon Eisenberg and Joseph Stocker, along with their friends – photographer David Mitchell – headed out west to shoot a video for their new line of jeans (currently in process). After an initial visit to Las Vegas, the friends then headed to Santa Fe. While en route, they stopped along the side of a desolate scenic route in Truchas, NM (in the middle of nowhere) to photograph a horse standing in a valley. Admittedly stoned out of their minds, they thought that they were hallucinating when a guy in a pickup truck (with a Bills sticker on the back) pulled up to see how they were doing.
“He rolled down his window, and he looked just like Jimmy Page,” said Eisenberg. “He was with his wife and his dog. We told him that we were from Buffalo. He responded that he was originally from Batavia, and invited us to come back to see his art studio. So we followed him to his home, which was in an artist community on Spanish grant lands, where we sat around drinking tequila and listening to stories for the next five hours.”
It turns out that this artist from Batavia, who they thought was a mirage at first, goes by the name of eRic Luplow. Luplow told them that when he was young, he used to accompany his parents to the Albright Knox – the gallery inspired him to become a painter. In fact, his dream has always been, to have one of his paintings in the world renowned gallery in his hometown.
As Eisenberg replayed the story in his mind, I kept thinking about how nuts it all sounded. Then I thought about Buffalo… and how no matter where you go in the world, you will always run into an expat from this wild and wacky city. And that’s exactly what happened with the bureau crew.
Eisenberg then told me that he went back to visit Luplow four months later (October of 2018), to discuss embarking upon an Elmwood mural project. Luplow loved the idea – he figured that if his works weren’t being shown in the AK, the next best thing would be, to have a mural of his work emblazoned upon a building just down the street.”
The next step was for Luplow and his wife was to make plans for a road trip to Buffalo, as part of their annual art expedition around the country. The couple have been on the road since February, and just appeared in Buffalo a few days ago. Upon arrival, Luplow got right to work on the mural, finishing the last bit yesterday.
According to Eisenberg, the inspiration behind Yellow Dog is a cosmic trip into the universe that resulted in the further bonding of comrades, the start of new friendships, and a fantastic new mural on Elmwood that is a daily reminder that the entire trip was not a dream after all.