Street artist Faring Purth is adding layer upon layer to her Cherokee Street mural, causing passersby to stop, stare, wonder and, often, snap a photo of her work in progress.
See also: Artist Faring Purth Begins Massive Cherokee Street Mural; Detractors Call It Racist, Sexist
Purth planned to travel the country, painting and eventually making her way back to her home state of California. But once she got to St. Louis, she decided to settle down for a bit, move in and create a mural on the side of the Nebula Coworking building on Cherokee Street.
Purth uses a boom to create her mural more than 100 feet wide and 40 feet high.
"She's just really been taken in by the community here," Cara Spencer, who runs the Nebula Coworking space on Cherokee Street, told Daily RFT last week when the mural was no more than a silhouette. "The larger Cherokee community has embraced her being here, her artwork, who she is. It was not our intent to keep her here, but why not, right?"
Purth occasionally shares updates and thoughts on her work on Facebook, offering an intriguing look behind the scenes for an artist who says she won't talk to media about the mural until it's completed.
"Thing is she's meant to be here," she posted online Tuesday. "I'm meant to be here. And neither of us are done yet."
Already, the mural has the grotesquely beautiful and elongated femininity Purth is famous for around the country. At Purth's request, Daily RFT is not publishing photos of the artist with her mural in progress.
Want to see where she started? Here's a shot from a week ago:
Follow Lindsay Toler on Twitter at @StLouisLindsay. E-mail the author at [email protected].
