Chasing the darkness, Tony Sansevero

The sun in summer can be brutal; anybody that’s lived here should know that. It can also be brutal to painted stucco, like the mural at Flora and Fauna, the boutique hotel located on River Road.

Giving character to the hotel, which in previous lives was a small business, the mural makes the hotel distinctive and stand out from the crowd, and has the past seven or eight years.

“I met Trish the owner at the opening, when they bought the hotel. They wanted something natural, about nature and asked me to create a design. I worked on it a couple months before the opening,” Tony Sansevero, muralist said.

“I was the first guest here. I wouldn’t sleep in the bed. It was too wonderful. I slept on the couch.”

This time staying at the hotel around repairs, he is with his 14 year old daughter, off of school for the summer. Born in upstate New York, he now lives in Austin. By trade he is also a children’s book illustrator and has been for the past twenty -five years.

“I work through the night. People would stop and visit. One lady was worried (about me eating) and bring me food from the sub shop. Animals come and watch me, deer, saw fox. A raccoon came and looked right at the drawing of the raccoon. I wished I had a camera for that…I love painting animals as I watch across the field.”

His sleeping hours are around 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. “The golden hour is from 6 to 8:30, it is perfect lighting, I try to get some of the animals done.” Professional lights come out at night and take him to sunrise.

“As you get to a certain age, in your 50s and 60s and look back. And it is not how much money they have but the things they have created but things they have created which represent them at a certain moment. I look at a piece and remember the music that was playing, what I was thinking. I couldn’t imagine doing anything else.”

The repairs include scraping, and stucco repair, “painting the animals and to put it together. “ The wall’s mural also now will portray the light at sunrise on one end and the opposite end dusk, something he wanted to do the first time around but ran out of time. Being able to come back and make the repairs is a thrill and to do it in Wimberley, far from the hot asphalt of Austin is even better.

He also has another mural in town, not too far away at Cypress Creek Cottages. This mural is more whimsical with dogs portraying teenagers, called “Selfies.” For more information on Tony Sansevero see Magical ideas.com