Post by the Artist
Back in January I met with two of the owners of Tender Greens Restaurants, a fast casual restaurant chain in California. Josh and I have been regulars at their Point Loma location since it first opened a couple years ago. Their food is fantastic to say the least! This summer they are opening their 13th location in downtown San Diego on the corner of First and Broadway and they’ve hired me to create a permanent installation of original paintings for this new location. As we began conceptualizing the work for this new project, they asked me to also create new originals for their Point Loma location as well. Good times indeed.
I first met with co-founder/owner Erik Oberholtzer and executive chef/owner Pete Balistreri. They were introduced to my work thanks to their catering manager, Heidi Wahl whom Josh met by chance one night while managing at Bali Hai. Heidi showed my work to Erik and Pete and we all decided to meet. I invited them to my place so they could see some of my work in person. The fact is, the internet is a great tool to introduce people to your work, but it really does not do justice to seeing things like art in person. I guess this was a good idea because it seemed clear to me from the start that this would be a great match – their concept, food philosophies, and friendly demeanors seemed to meld well with my painting style. Plus, they love art. You can just tell. By the questions they ask, the artists they talk about, the interest in my background. I didn’t realize it at the time, but it turns out they have already worked with some of my favorite artists on their other locations – Chris Reccardi for their Pasadena location, Jeremyville for Santa Monica, 123Klan for Irvine and Jon Burgerman for La Jolla. More good times. This puts me in good company for sure.
I’ve started work on their Point Loma location first. Here are a few pieces of concept art for that project. The pic at the top is one of the finished works for Point Loma, a five foot tall original for the center wall. More soon! Cheers!
